Into the Pitt, She Falls
by Mopps
Summary: Part 2 of 3. Cort wasn't sure what was happening to her, but she was going to find out whether she liked it or not. She'll pay for it by losing herself. M rating for language, violence, romance and adult situations. FLW/Charon. R&R appreciated!
1. Into the Pitt, She Falls

_Note: This is the second installment in my Fallout 3 trilogy. The first part is entitled "Out of the Dust, She Rises" and can be found by clicking on my username. I highly recommend reading the first story before starting this one, as it gives a lot of necessary background for the characters, and people seemed to really enjoy it. :) The reason I'm splitting these into three stories is because they move through different periods in my Lone Wanderer's development, I'm still playing around with writing(reading my profile will tell you why I'm doing this), and I find it makes everything easier to read and digest. As always, thanks much for reading and your reviews! On with the show._

_

* * *

_

**Cort **wasn't sure where her priorities had shifted. Currently, she was sitting on the edge of the irradiated remains of the Potomac River, watching the sluggish green water churl by as the tide moved through the DC basin. Some of it was still streaming off of her, making a puddles on the rubble she was slumped on, and she took time to admire the way her own tiny rivers were shining in the dusty morning sunshine before looking back up to where Dogmeat and Charon were engaged with a Mirelurk. Swimming across the river from the Citadel had attracted two of the creatures, and the ghoul had already made short work of the first.

Making it across the river had nearly done Cort in. Charon's earlier assessment of her condition had been blisteringly precise, and she was bitterly feeling her current deficiencies in spades. Her armour felt loose and too heavy, her pack was like a lead weight even after he had redistributed most of the contents to his own, and while she could shoot as straight as ever, the way she felt had sucked the wind out of her confidence. Her head didn't feel too hot either, and she wondered if she had managed to bang it off the headboard while she was sleeping(she could recall waking up, but wasn't sure of the reason for it or what had happened, only that she was unsettled). The ghoul had taken one look at her after coming out onto the shoreline and barked at her to stay out of the way, turning to fight the mutant crabs with the dog. Another boom issued out from the big man's combat shotgun and she blinked, forcing herself out of the self-pity she had allowed herself to wallow in. _Enough of that, not good for you. Not good for anyone. You'll get better again._ The Mirelurk was collapsing to the ground, the top of its carapace blown off.

"_Like_ that, you little mud-eating _fuck_?" Cort smiled as Charon swore at the corpse and immediately started to butcher it, Dogmeat burying his muzzle into the crater left by the shot blast. This was one priority she had a bead on, had down pat, even if the rest of her life was currently directionless. The massive ghoul was the most important thing in her life, and the rock she had tethered herself to. Laughing as he continued to spin out profanities, she clapped happily, drawing his attention. "What?"

"I ever tell you how brutally efficient you are at killing things? You're positively fantastic. Epitome of homicidal efficiency." She watched as the ghoul rolled his eyes and snorted before returning to what he was doing, but not before she observed him subtly puffing out his chest a little at her comments. _I don't compliment him enough. I should do it more often_. Cort tilted her head, watched him lean over to ram his combat knife into the side of one massive claw, grinned wickedly, then yelled out again. "You also have an ass that would stop rush hour traffic!"

"_WHAT_?" He snapped his head up so fast it practically blurred, giving her such an affronted and flat out incredulous look that she immediately dissolved into giggles upon seeing it. Slowly calming down, she schooled her face into something resembling haughtiness.

"I believe that you heard me perfectly well."

Shaking his head, he walked over and handed her a halved claw, having left it around the large chunk of meat it contained like a plate. "Here, motormouth. You want to stop feeling like a wash-up, _eat_ up."

"I thought you liked my mouth."

"That doesn't preclude me from noticing that it never stops running." Leaning forward, he briefly kissed her forehead before returning back to the carcasses, continuing to strip anything edible from them.

Cort closed her eyes and smiled again, thinking about the way his rough lips had felt on her skin and other things related to him. If you had asked her a year ago who she thought she would have ended up with, a morose ghoul mercenary almost five times her age wouldn't have even come close to figuring into the equation, not being aware then of what a ghoul even _was_ in the first place. She would have thought carefully, and then responded with a best and worst case scenario. Best case would have been Paul Hannon Jr., if she had had anything to say about it, and worst case would have been Butch DeLoria. _Although Butch wasn't bad, not really. Easy enough to manipulate, but that wasn't really what I was looking for in a relationship. I also wasn't looking for a chauvinistic asshole, even if he _was_ kind of a friend._ Freddie Gomez would have been somewhere in the middle, and Wally Mack didn't even enter into the equation. Thinking about Wally and his winning personality, Cort grimaced. _Christ, whoever marries him is going to end up as a punching bag. Although the only other girls are Amata and Christine, and there's no freaking way Amata would be allowed to marry Wally even if she wanted to, no matter how far Alphonse's cheese may have slid off his cracker._ Frowning at the thought of the Overseer and her old Vault in general, she turned her mind towards what had started her thinking, and reached her left hand over to play with the bracelet on her other wrist. Her expression lightened as she ran her fingers over the warm metal, and she thought about the man who had given it to her so unexpectedly, wondering if he had any idea what the gesture had meant to her.

Opening her eyes and seeing that the object of her musings had paused in his work to glare at her, she pushed her helmet visor up and dug into the claw with the other hand, ripping the flesh apart and devouring it as she pulled it free, rapidly making short work of it. "Charon, do you know what it means when you give a ring to uh, someone, and they take it?"

Watching her break apart the big piece of shell to lick the insides, the ghoul took it as a random, unimportant request for information on her part, and responded as such. "No idea, and knock that off, you'll slice your tongue up. Here, greedy." He came over and gave her another split claw, which she tore into immediately, Charon grunting approvingly at her.

"Thank you." She _was_ hungry, and the pieces of Mirelurk were the first thing she had had to eat today. Scrabbling at the shell to get everything she could out of it, she put aside her earlier train of thought and reflected on what they had done before crossing the Potomac.

* * *

**They** had slipped out of the Citadel early that morning, Cort not wanting to be bogged down by anyone, only waiting long enough for Durga to start her work so they could get their weapons back. Charon had retrieved them and traded for anything they needed with the caps they had left, then returned to help her get ready. Before coming back to her, he had ducked outside for a moment, digging her combat knife out of the bundle. Looking at it, he had thinned his lips at the dried blood still smeared over it, then jammed it between two paving stones on the edge of the Bailey, snapping the blade off with a flick of his wrist and violently flinging the hilt into a pile of rubble. She would still carry a knife, would have to, but it would never be that one again. By the time he got back, Cort had put her and Dogmeat's armour on and was glowering at her pack. The ghoul took one look at her and sighed. "What now."

"It's too heavy."

"_Oh_. That's why you look so pissed? That's nothing, we'll just move shit into mine." He rolled his eyes, then started repacking their belongings and sorting out their weapons as she started griping.

"_Perfect_. I can't even carry my own shit. Why the heck aren't you all flabby from having a month out anyway. I feel like a Goddamned limp noodle."

"It doesn't matter how long it was for me. I was ghoulified in this condition, so I stay in this condition, perpetual regeneration. That's why I could stand in that fucking corner for that long and not turn into a pile of puke, fuckface didn't exactly let me out for calisthenics. Lucky me." Charon finished rearranging everything heavy into his own pack, putting all the clothing and lighter hear into Cort's, then slung hers at her head when she stared at the ceiling and snorted. One hand shot up blindingly quick and she caught it without looking, the other joining it as she slung it on. "See? You can still do that spooky shit of yours. Reflexes are fine. Aim's fine. You'll be fine. Now come on, it's getting light out, and you didn't want to deal with any of these scrubs when we left."

"Yeah." Opening the door, Cort yelped and jumped back. Irving Gallows was standing directly in front of it and had just managed to scare the everliving shit out of her. "Don't DO that!"

The voice issuing from the helmet sounded distinctly pleased with itself. "Sorry." She was fighting down the sudden urge to beat him to death when he raised his left hand and proffered something towards her, the sight of it distracting her entirely.

"Mine?" Cort took the sniper rifle when he did nothing but silently hold it out, running her hands over the new weapon. It was in immaculate condition, and she ran her fingers over the notched barrel, imagining what she could do with it in graphic detail. "_Awesome_. Thank you!"

"Good luck, and use it well." Gallows paused, then tilted his head imperceptibly towards her. "Wherever it is you're planning to go."

She smiled up at him sadly. "Can't pull one over on you, can I."

"Nope." He tilted his head again before turning away, this time towards the ghoul, who nodded back. "Charon."

Both of them had watched the armoured man walk down the hall until he had disappeared around the corner(somehow managing to move without making a sound in the heavy gear), then left the Citadel without looking back.

* * *

**"I **told you to stop that." Cort shook herself out of her reminiscing as Charon poked her shoulder. She had been licking at the shell in her hands again, having eaten everything out of it.

"Sorry. Force of habit."

"Still hungry? I can unpack more." Rolling his shoulders, he started shrugging the straps off of them.

"No, I'm stuffed. I feel lots better now too. We can get going." Cort discarded the empty claw and raised her Pip-Boy, scrolling through to her maps as Charon re-shouldered his pack, looking smug. "Hmm, shit. I don't want to go to Anacostia Crossing from here. Too close to the Jefferson. Or through Farragut, it'll take forever. Ooo!" She looked back up to him, smiling. "Remember where we blew up molerats? We can go through there to get to Georgetown, and then it's only one more trip underground to get to the Mall."

Charon felt a grimace forming on his face at the thought of going into an unknown area with her as she was and then rapidly turned it into a grin, not wanting to discourage her. Losing her confidence could turn out worse in the long run than pushing herself too hard. _Besides, the familiar places have had more than enough time to fill up with hostile shit as it is_. _Broad as it is long_. "Fabulous. _I_ get the stick first this time."

"You wish."

* * *

**So** far, making their way to the Mall hadn't been as bad as the ghoul had expected it to be. Enamoured with her new rifle, Cort had managed to take out several targets before they were even aware they were being attacked, and the slow, stealthy pace she was setting meant that she wasn't in danger of overtaxing herself. Georgetown itself had been somewhat hairy, a Super Mutant Overlord perched on a balcony halfway through the area taking potshots at them with a Missile Launcher, driving them back behind the shelter of a shattered building. Cort had switched to her repeater and handed him the sniper rifle, and they had made a game of slowly picking the monstrosity apart, blinding it first and then obliterating the launcher before moving to its extremities. While she had seemed a little _too_ enthused with torturing the mutant to death, Charon had chalked it up to her being happy to be out and moving again. Heading back underground, something happened that would have twigged him to there being a much larger problem with her behaviour if not for a set of extenuating circumstances that distracted him completely.

After descending into the Georgetown/The Mall Metro station, they were immediately ambushed by a large squad of Talon Comany mercenaries, five instead of the regular three. The leader had shot Charon in the leg before turning his attention to Cort to gloat as the remaining four covered them. It was a fatal mistake.

"Well looky looky, I got your screw buddy! We fucking _knew_ you'd drag your zombie-loving ass back to the Mall sooner or later, you corpse-fucking bi-" It was impossible for him to continue, the entirety of his head having been ventilated by an extremely irate ghoul with an extremely fast draw, who had barreled down on the remaining mercs bellowing like a freight train out of hell.

"Sloppy, unprofessional _pricks_. I'm going to eat your _fucking_ faces off and shit them in your _FUCKING MOUTHS_!" One of the mercs had turned tail and ran at the sight of the massive terror bearing down on him, Dogmeat pulling him down a second later as Charon blew the other's chest open, grunting as another bullet pegged into his arm. He turned to engage a third as Cort hurled herself at the last man, tackling him to the ground and wrenching a laser pistol away from him as she yanked her combat knife out of her boot, pressing it to his neck. She was fairly certain there were burns on her side from him shooting at her, but for whatever reason they seemed far away and unimportant.

"Gotcha!" Looking up into her crazed face, the merc froze. Her pupils were narrowed to pinpricks in the gloom and her face was drawn into a rictus of a smile, the weight she had lost making it look like a death's head. She grinned wider, watching his eyes frantically move around, looking for help, and started talking in a conversational tone as Charon swore in the background. "I am really, _really_ tired of you fucks coming after me and my family, so we're going to have a little fun first."

"You're fucking _nuts_! You-" Cort flipped her knife to the back of the blade and pushed down hard, forcing his voice into a set of muffled gurgles. Seeing more of the people hired to kill her had made her half-crazed. The assholes getting the drop on them had infuriated her. Watching the leader shoot Charon and start taunting her about it had driven her straight into the red, pushing all other concerns out of her mind. She had decided to get some back, and she was going to do it as slowly as possible. Tossing her repeater aside, she leaned in closer, burying a hand in his hair.

"Shhh. I am _talking_. You know what I noticed the first time I stabbed someone? It's surprisingly difficult. You wouldn't think so, but skin is tough. If the knife isn't sharp enough, it'll practically bounce right off it. There's a fantastic feeling of _tension_ right before you slip through it and finally penetrate." She looked almost lustful at this, and the merc struggled harder before she pushed down again. "I think I'll demonstrate it for your benefit. It'll be a _good_ lesson, since I'll be using you."

"Cort? What the holy fuck are you _doing_?" She jerked her head up, looking at the blood-spattered ghoul hitching rapidly towards her. It gave the frantic man under her an opportunity, and he grabbed the first weapon he could lay his hands on, pulling it loose from his belt. Snapping her head back down at the noise, Cort snarled and drove her knife into his throat, just in time to take the blast of the pulse grenade he had triggered full in the face.


	2. I'm Blind and You Can't See

_Wow the support! Thanks for the new reviews and following over guys! You're all fantastic. :)_

_

* * *

_

**The** entire world was white and screaming, and so was Cort. She was screaming for Charon, she was screaming over her own sloppy stupidity, and she was screaming because she had lost her sight. Feeling hands on her arms, she hauled back the left one to slash with the knife she was still holding, the blade wrenched away from her a second later.

"CORT!" A raspy voice cut through her own and she stopped screaming, her breath hitching as she tried to get herself under control.

"Charon? I can't see you, I can't see, _I can't fucking see_!" Winding herself up again, she was cut off abruptly as the ghoul shook her.

"Then what do I do to fix it, Cort? What do I do _first_?" Grasping blindly at him, her hands made contact with wet, sticky patches and she froze, jolted out of her own panic as his rose.

"First we get the bullets out of you, I know they hit you. Dig out the hemostats and the glowing water _and_ the Stimpaks and patch yourself up." Cort bit back a sob and reached up to shove at her pack straps. "I'm not going anywhere."

"NO! We're taking care of you fi-"

"THAT'S A FUCKING ORDER, CHARON!" Feeling her temper soaring again, she forced herself to stay calm as the ghoul instantly started pulling materials out of her pack and attended to himself. _It's fine, as long as he's fine. If he's fine, nothing else matters_. She hesitantly spoke up again after a long moment, when she was sure she could do it without shrieking. "Is-Is there anything you can't reach yourself?"

"No. There is not."

_Oh shit, he sounds pissed, he should be pissed. What the fuck _was_ I doing? Fuck, what am I going to do now?_ Balling her hands into fists, she dug her nails into her palms and waited for him to finish, trying to identify the different sounds. She nearly jumped out of her skin when his hands suddenly grabbed a hold of her shoulders.

"I'm finished. Now fucking tell me what to do for you."

"Uh, helmet off. Get my helmet off and tell me what my eyes look like." She sniffled as he undid the buckle, and then swore as he pulled it off. "Shit, it would probably help if I opened them."

Now he sounded shaky. It was worse than him sounding pissed. "Cort...they are open."

"Oh _shiiiit_. Uh, no, don't worry, no, no. What do they look like. How much of my pupils do you see?" She suppressed another jump when his breath unexpectedly hit her face.

"Next to none. Can't you see anything? At all?"

"Just white spots. It's flash blindness, it should go away." _If I'm lucky_. Feeling an itching starting up behind her eyes and a strong urge to paw at them, Cort didn't think she was going to be. "Maybe-maybe flash burns. That should go away too. Give me a Stimpak." Holding her hand out, she moved it up as soon as the syringe was placed in it and tried jamming it behind her ear, Charon taking it back as she fumbled.

"Here, give it. You hate doing it up there." He grabbed the back of her neck, making her start. "Fuck. Sorry." Cort waited for the needle to push into her neck, fidgeting when it didn't come, and stilling when his voice did. "This was a bad idea. I shouldn't have let you leave the Citadel."

"No, it wasn't. There's no way I would have stayed longer, no matter what you said. Stimpak, please." Cort yelped as he rammed it in, his other hand tightening its grip when she tried to pull away from it. "Okay, now we just wait for a little while." Hearing Dogmeat sneeze, she decided to direct the ghoul away into something else before she collapsed onto him, trying to sound reassuring. "Go check Dogmeat, this'll take a few minutes to clear." Listening to him move away, she shut her eyes and watched the white balls in her field of vision slowly fade as the minutes ran out. When it was almost entirely gone, she cracked them carefully open again. She could see vague shapes moving around in the gloom. _Oh thank God, maybe it was just the tempora-_ Flicking her Pip-Boy on to see better, she shrieked as the light stabbed into her head, Charon skidding down beside her a second later. "Turn it off, turn it off!" Sobbing with relief when he did, she leaned forward against him. "Definitely flash burns. Okay. I need you to dig out some water, and a bunch of the clean rags."

Eyes watering painfully and half blind even in the dark, she carefully explained to Charon what to do, the ghoul wetting down two folded pads of the cloth with purified water and holding them in place while she tied a longer strip around her head to keep them against her eyes. "Cort." Now he sounded strained, and it wasn't helping her nerves. "What now? I can carry you back to the Citadel, the way behind us should definitely still be clear."

Trying to sound cheery and succeeding better than she thought, she responded back to him while staggering to her feet. "What? No way, we're almost right on top of Underworld. The Citadel doesn't even have a doctor, just that shitty Mister Gutsy, who is _not_ getting near my face, or any of my other bits. Besides, this won't last more than a week, tops, probably less since I can still see stuff. I just have to keep them out of bright light for a while, and then probably go back to wearing my sunglasses for a little bit." She held her hand out and snuffled. "Now lay on, MacDuff."

"_What_?" He was shaking his head, she could hear his armour creaking. "Cort, maybe we should try another Stimpak." She shook her own, hearing her armour making a similar sound. Dogmeat was circling and she could hear his too.

_This isn't too bad. I can deal, sure I can, sure as shit and sugar, my ears work. Mostly._ She tilted her better one towards him. "It wouldn't do anything past what the first one did. Right now there's nothing really damaged, I'm just photosensitive as hell. Eyes are funny things, but I'll be fine." Cort bit back a series of crazy giggles, hoping she was right and starting to come unhinged again as the last of the adrenaline cleared out of her system. "Just get me to Barrows, it'll be okay. Promise." His hand abruptly smacked into hers after the last word, and she was relieved at the contact and that she had managed to keep from jumping this time. It wasn't that bad when she thought about it, really, and she managed to feel like falling to pieces only twice on the way out of the Metro and down the Mall. _This'll be a good lesson for me. I won't run my mouth off before butchering someone next time, I'll just start cutting_. Cort smiled as Charon carefully tugged her along, feeling oddly cheerful. _Next time, I'll be better_.

* * *

**Leading** Cort slowly along the Mall, Charon scrambled through his recollection of their last combat encounter, trying to figure out how everything had gone so entirely to hell. His mind bounced from blaming it on her lack of fitness to himself and everything in between before looping back to start all over again. They had come out next to the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, reassuringly(and wasn't _that_ a complete about face from before) close to a Brotherhood outpost set behind the Washington Monument. There was a comforting amount of radiation coming out of the pool, and he was torn between letting it soothe him or forcing himself to ignore it, figuring that it was the last thing he deserved at the moment. He focused instead on moving down towards Underworld, deciding to let the Knights worry about anything their furtive movements might have attracted. Once they passed the Monument, he hitched her up against his left side with one arm and hugged the walls as much as possible, carrying her the rest of the way and blocking her from sight.

"Charon?"

"Shhh. Mutants. They can't see you from here, so stay quiet." He had noticed a green head moving up from one of the trenches, and held his breath as it tracked onto him, the ghoul turning slightly to let his large frame hide as much of Cort as he could. The mutant squinted at him carefully for a long moment, and he let his breath out again as the monstrosity ducked back down, dismissing him as unimportant and outside of their territory. Dogmeat had crouched as low as possible and slinked along rapidly, almost dragging his belly in the dirt in an effort to be unnoticeable. Setting her down when they reached the Museum entrance, he picked her up again immediately as she stumbled, the sight of her groping hands unbearable. Willow came over from the corner she had been leaning against, looking at them curiously. "Willow, get the damn door. Please." Shrugging, the other ghoul had complied, thankfully not asking him any questions about what had happened. Still not sure of what had, he dismissed it as a moot point and kept walking.

"Charon, my feet work fine. I can walk to the clinic."

"No." Hooking a foot under one of the handles on the inner doors, he yanked it back violently and ducked through before it could close, Dogmeat darting under his leg. Glaring at anyone who dared to even look at Cort on the way to the Chop Shop, he moved through the last door as the dog pushed it open. "Good mutt. Barrows! Where the _fuck _are you?" Cort piped up again from under his chin as the ghoul in question jerked up from behind the observation screen, a Geiger counter in his hands and a syringe held between his teeth, which fell out and hit the floor with a muffled clatter as he gaped at them.

"Charon, stop being an ass and put me down. _Now_." Snarling at the doctor through the glass, he placed her on a gurney, then turned to watch Barrows edge out of the far door, pushing Meat's head back into the enclosure as the Glowing One slobbered against his hand. Coming over after had locked it and grabbed a rag to clean the drool off with, he ignored Charon completely, peering at Cort with a strange look on his face until the bigger ghoul snapped at him.

"Fix her or I'll break your neck."

Barrows glanced up at him acerbically, completely unintimidated. "Break my neck and I won't be able to fix her later. And trust me, there will _always_ be a later with her." He turned back to Cort, altering his voice into an uncharacteristically soothing tone. "Isn't that right, Cort? Now how did you screw yourself over this time?"

Homing in on him, she chirped back, raising her right arm and needlessly pointing to her covered eyes. "Flash burns."

Moving over to the wall, he slapped the lights in the clinic out, shooing Charon out of the way with an absent flick of his hand as Nurse Graves hurried back into the darkened clinic. "From?"

"Pulse grenade. Not seeing spots anymore, Stimpak applied, I can register movement, light hurts like hell. What you think, about a week?"

"If you're lucky. I'm hesitant to guess considering the amount of damage you generally manage to inflict on yourself, but then you always seem to bounce back just fine, don't you." Carefully removing her helmet and peeling the rags off of her head, he gently flicked each of her eyelids up with a thumb, peering closely into her face. "Hurt?"

"A little."

"Well they're not damaged on the surface. You had your visor down?" She nodded. "Good girl, I thought so. Then there's not much else I can do for them at present, aside from shining an ophthalmoscope into there, which I don't think you would take particularly well to at the moment. If you can already discern movement, I wouldn't worry. You should be fine in a few days, which you will be spending around _here_, I might add, and you'll most likely have to wear sunglasses or goggles for a while afterward." Tilting her chin up, he examined her critically. "Graves, dig out some soft gauze and one of those long bandages Quinn just brought back."

Charon fumed as he watched Barrows carefully bandage his employer's eyes. "That's _it_? That's _all_ you're going to do for her?"

"That's all I _can_ do, she managed everything herself already. Nice to know she can at least save me some work next time she decides to act like an idiot."

"Jesus, Mary and _Joseph_, I am sitting right here and I am NOT deaf!" Patting Cort on the shoulder as she fussed in approximately the right direction, he glared at Charon and jabbed a finger towards the door.

"No, of course you're not. Graves, why don't you help her out of her armour, hmm? You might as well get comfortable. I'll be right back, I need to check on something." Moving out of the clinic, he literally shoved at Charon to proceed him when he hesitated, the big ghoul looking like he was torn between shock and fury at the physical contact. Turning to confirm the door had closed entirely, Barrows whipped back around, made sure there was no one within earshot, then completely and unexpectedly tore him a new one. "Have you been walking around out there with your thumbs shoved up your damned _ass_ for the last five weeks? You fucking _must've_, because you've done one hell of a piss-poor job of looking after her. How could you let that _happen_? What in the name of God happened to _her_?"

Charon glared back at him, pissed off at being touched, infuriated at the dig against his performance and the lack of any improvement in Cort after bringing her to the clinic. "She fucking _told_ you, a pulse grenade. Will hearing it twice finally enable you to fucking treat her for it, or do I have to break _your_ thumbs the fuck _off_?"

Barrows leaned in, struggling to keep his voice lowered as his temper rose. "Her eyes will be _fine_ given enough rest, although I can't say the same for your ears, since they appear to be still clogged from when your brains ran out of them. That or catastrophically stunned. A _pulse grenade_ did not turn her into a walking _rake_ with the obvious remains of a _suicide attempt_. Does it have anything to do with that debacle at the Jefferson?"

"How the hell do you know ab-" He snarled as the answer suddenly struck him. "Oh for fuck's sakes. That _shitting_ DJ." He ran a hand over his face and snarled again, feeling frustrated and relieved at the same time. _At least that fucking bastard didn't end up knowing everything, or Barrows wouldn't be asking. At least there's that much. Christ, next time Cort asks if she should kill him, I'm saying yes._ "Yes. It has _everything_ to do with it." Firmly pushing down his reservations and reminding himself that the doctor was already keeping secrets for her, Charon relayed everything that had happened to Cort, starting with James dying and ending with the moment she woke up, deciding that if _Cort_ trusted this asshole, he might as well give it a shot himself. Barrows said nothing during the recitation, only looked grimmer the farther he got into it, his eyes unfocused as he concentrated on what he was being told. After he had finished, the doctor stayed silent for a few more moments, thinking.

"_You _spent a solid month in the _Citadel_. Without killing anything."

Charon snarked at him, frustrated with everything and wanting to get back to Cort. "Yes, it's a lovely vacation spot. I recommend you try it."

"Humph. You'd have to knock me out and drag me." Barrows paused, looking thoughtful. "Have you noticed any significant alterations in her behaviour since she revived? Her personality, eating habits, the like? Still interested in her favourite things? Anything strike you as wrong about her, off?"

The big ghoul considered the questions carefully. All he had noted was an increase in her being distracted, which he ascribed to her being overtired, and therefore didn't mention it. She was attentive to the dog, affectionate to him, and obviously still loved to shoot things, so he decided everything there was normal as well. The rest of her was so completely variable that anything out of the ordinary _was_ ordinary. Something about the last Talon merc she had killed tickled around the edges of his brain, niggling at him, but he dismissed it, rationalizing. He had been shot, and that had always made her a little unhinged in her responses. Perfectly normal, perfectly all right. Charon had no qualms about taking care of her needs, was proud of doing so on a personal and professional level, but Cort was still his employer. She was in charge, and the master of his fate. She was the rock he was tethered to, and the thought of her being sick again, of leaving him directionless, was terrifying. The fact that she had become so much more than just an employer to him only compounded his efforts to convince himself. There _couldn't_ be anything wrong. She was back, and he loved her, and she would be fine. She _was_ fine. Noticing the other man staring at him oddly, he blurted out an answer. "She's eating more now because I can make her. I know she's too thin. Nothing else."

Barrows nodded absently at his response and then returned his sharp gaze to him. "All right then. Let me know if anything changes, and I _mean_ anything. You're in the best position to observe her." He sighed. "Charon, I apologize for disparaging you. What you managed to do is astonishing for someone with no medical background or experience." Examining the dour mercenary, he privately amended his comments. _Astonishing? Flat out stupefying considering it's him._ _Good Lord, what did that peculiar little thing manage to do to him. _Barrows had always known there was more to the big ghoul than was readily apparent to the casual observer, but his professed nursing of Cort coupled with the startling range of emotions that had flown over his face shifted his assessment of the man even farther afield. His expression had gone from infuriated to distraught, spiked briefly into a surge of pride at relaying Cort's assault on the Paladin, and had flitted through what he could only identify as pure and unadulterated _joy_ before snapping back into its normal, hostile moroseness_._ It was like watching a stone come to life.

"I did what I had to. Now are we done fucking around out here?" He turned without waiting for a reply, shouldering through the doors and back into the clinic. Coming in after him, Barrows' altered appraisal soared into the stratosphere, and the same thing was apparently happening to Graves. The nurse was nearly twisting herself in half to watch the odd pair from her seat at the terminal, mouth hanging wide enough to snag a bloatfly. Charon had buried his hands in Cort's hair, and was resting his forehead against hers as he quietly rasped to her, oblivious to anything or anyone else. "Do you want to stay here, or at Carol's?"

"Carol's, silly. I'm not sick, I'm just having a somewhat lousy day." She smiled, and Charon closed his eyes briefly, looking pained for a moment.

"Fuck Cort, you wear me out." Grinning wider, she reached out and placed her hands on his sides, tugging at his shirt.

"Maybe later."

Tilting his head down, Charon kissed her, still ignoring everything else. Barrows found that slightly impressive, considering Graves had just fallen completely off of her chair, making a solid whump against the floor. Biting his cheek to keep from laughing at her(she was _still_ gaping like a fish, and damned if it wasn't funny but doing that would put her in a snit for _days_), he cleared his throat and tried to sound irritated.

"If both of you are _quite_ finished with monopolizing my time, I have work to do. Go get a damned room, I don't need you steaming what's left of the paint off of my ceiling."

Breaking away, Charon released Cort after pinning Barrows with a dark look, which the doctor returned measure for measure until he turned back to stroke her hair. "I'll be right back for you. I'll take all of our gear up first, and tell her what happened so she doesn't flip out all over you or some shit."

"Okay." Cort tilted her head, listening to him gather up everything and for the door to close, then turned to Barrows once it had, who was now testily helping Graves up off the floor. "How's _that_ for some positive behavioural changes?"

This time, Barrows did laugh, quickly turning it into a set of disgruntled coughs as he caught himself doing it. He shook his head and headed back to finish his interrupted examination of Meat and Ethel as Cort smirked and swung her heels. He gave her one last, appraising look before heading back into the enclosure. She was unusually calm for someone who had been nearly blinded, but then she had always taken her injuries with a certain amount of aplomb. Thankful that she had someone competent around to keep an eye on her when he couldn't, he made a mental note to grill Charon whenever the trio floated back through Underworld, surprising himself with the thought. _ If you had asked me who I thought that little smoothskin would end up pairing off with, I don't think he would have been included in my set of candidates. In any known universe._ Barrows shook his head and sighed, shouldering Ethel back so he could shut the door behind him. He stood for a moment, looking at his hands. _Or _any _ghoul, for that matter. Very, very peculiar smoothskin. I wish that...I wish there were more._


	3. It May Be Flying, But it's Not a Nun

_Okay I have no freakin clue what's going on with FF, but this story isn't even on the first page(or ANY page, as far as I can tell, I went back and looked), but still in my profile listing. I emailed support about it disappearing entirely yesterday. :/ Up side is, you guys get two chapters in one day, so I can see if this poinks it into existence again. I didn't want to update and not give you anything. If it keeps acting like this, I'm just going to fold it all into Out of the Dust and live with it. I'm sorry if this is putting anyone out, I don't know what's happening._

_

* * *

_

**Cort** took things with aplomb for as long as it took her to notice that things had gotten entirely too quiet. She could hear Graves typing away, she could hear Dogmeat breathing somewhere, and Barrows muffled cursing, but it wasn't enough to drown out what she heard in her own head.

_I can feel it, behind my eyes. I can hear it, moving. Oh God, _I_ need to move. I need to go find Charon._

"Dogmeat?" She heard a whuff from beneath her and smiled. "There you are. Lead Momma up to Carol's, huh?"

Graves piped up from somewhere to her left. "Cort, Charon will be back down any minute. Why don't you wait?"

"I don't want to. I can make it up the freaking stairs like this, I did it on one foot for ages." Sliding off the gurney, she grabbed one of Dogmeat's ears as he thrust his head into her hand, then slid her hand down to grip his bandanna. Patting the door open and moving through the lower part of the concourse as the dog led her along, she listened carefully, trying to pick out and identify different sounds. She could hear people around her and moving out of the way, and smiled for their politeness. Truthfully, none were of a mind to approach her, most having seen the state Charon was in when he had torn through in both directions, and she made it to the base of the stairs uninterrupted. Letting go of Dogmeat, she smiled. "Okay baby, this is the easy part! Handrail and everything." Walking swiftly and carefully up the stairs, Cort thought about what she could do to keep herself busy while she waited for her eyes to settle down. _I'll get hugs from Carol, talk to Tulip for a while, and Snowflake again, my hair's a _mess_, and maybe Winthr-_

She crashed abruptly into the stone steps as a foot shot out to catch one of hers, banging her left temple against one of the hard edges, her left arm only saved from breaking by the sturdy Pip-Boy around it. Letting out a high pitched and disgruntled stream of profanities as Dogmeat started to froth beside her, she wiped at the blood streaming out of her forehead and groaned. Charon boiled out of the doorway above her a second later, putting his shotgun away when he saw her alone on the stairs with the dog. Coming down, he sat next to her and carefully peeled her hand away from the gash as Carol came out, one hand pressed to her mouth.

"Fuck Cort, I told you I was coming right back for you. What were you trying to do, paint the step with your brains?" Wincing as he delicately pressed around the area, she shook her head, trying to clear it, immediately regretting the motion.

"_No_. Somebody tripped me, I'm not _that_ clumsy. Anymore."

Charon clenched his hands hard enough to make the knuckles crack, forced them and himself to relax, then rubbed gently behind her clipped ear. "_Who_, Cort. Tell me who, please."

Disoriented and partially soothed y the caress, Cort's mouth ran more on the subject than she normally would have let it, particularly in front of her volatile companion. "Probably Carlo. He was always kicking my crutches out from under me until I wised up." Cort considered ordering Charon to retrieve the other ghoul so she could strangle him, then decided she was too addled to keep her temper sufficiently lit, even as attractive as the idea was_. It's probably a bad idea. I decided it was a bad idea before, and half my good ideas end up being bad ideas so I should be positive about which ones are the actual bad ones. Wait. What? _ Her ears were ringing loud enough to make her teeth ache and she winced, hissing as it made a new bolt of pain arc over the front of her skull.

Charon knew who she was referring to immediately. The thin ghoul had turned complaining about Cort in the 9th Circle into a nightly show the first time she was here. To his immeasurable distaste, he could remember agreeing with his opinions on almost every occasion. Carlo hadn't mentioned attacking her though, and he was baffled that Cort hadn't put a stop to the treatment immediately. To be perfectly blunt, he was surprised the little shit wasn't dried paste on the wall. "And you fucking _let_...why didn't the fucking _mutt _rip him apart?" The ghoul whipped his head around to stare accusingly at Dogmeat, who snorted and looked back at him disgustedly.

"Because I told him not to attack anyone in here. A lot of the residents probably wouldn't have liked it if the smoothskin let her dog tear one of them up, and I didn't want to lose the friends I made. It's my fault, I couldn't see who was on the stairs." Cort wiped one sticky hand on her cargos, turning her head around blearily. "Besides, m'alright."

"No, you're _not_ all right, you're fucking scrambled. Come on." Charon gathered her up and carried her back into Carol's, the woman herself following behind. Setting her gently into a chair, he ripped his pack open on the table next to it and dug out the required supplies, then set about gently cleaning the blood from her face after wetting a clean rag. The new dressings Barrows had put on her were soaked with it, and he exasperatedly wondered if the doctor was going to get up his ass again over this new injury. "Shit like this is why I don't want to leave you alone, Cort. You should've stayed in the clinic until I got back."

"But it's safe here." Charon snorted at the clearly inaccurate assessment and picked up the Stimpak he had taken out.

"This is going to fucking hurt."

"It _always_ fucking hurts. Just fix it for me, _please_." Working a hand into her hair, he brought her head in against his chest and quickly plunged the Stimpak behind her ear, holding her tightly when she shrieked. Charon felt his fury soar even higher hearing it. While she could dig around in her own shoulder for a bullet without batting an eye, healing a head injury always made her crumble up like a child, and he hated treating her for them because of it. Having to do it twice in one day tore through the limit of whatever patience and restraint he had left. Removing the empty syringe, he let it clatter across the table and then wrapped his other arm around her briefly before pulling back to get another look at the gash, the edges of which were rapidly knitting together. "Is it better?"

"It fucking will be shortly. Carol, can you watch her for a minute?" Carol thinned her lips and looked at him knowingly.

"Of _course_ I can. Here honey, let's get the last of the mess off of you."

Cort started feeling uneasy. The whole reason she had come up to Carol's was to find the big man, and she was starting to feel like she was playing some hellish game of tag. "No wait, where are you going? Charon?"

"He's just going to get Doctor Barrows, darling. Now lift your chin for me, there's my sweetie."

After one final look at Cort to make sure she was properly distracted by Carol's fussing, he signalled Dogmeat to follow him. Slipping outside, he crouched to talk to the animal. The month spent in the Citadel had firmly convinced him that somehow the dog was capable of knowing exactly what anyone was saying, and he had a fair to excellent idea that they were currently thinking the same thing. The mutt looked like he felt; terminally, consummately _pissed_. "Go find the asshole that sent her flying." Dogmeat managed to snarl and grin at the same time for him, the combination terrifying and hilarious at the same time, and then took off around the balcony, bee-lining immediately for the 9th Circle. Holding the door open for him and waiting just outside of it, Charon watched him walk around and plant himself in front of the ghoul Cort had mentioned, a rippling growl emanating from his chest. The dog made momentary eye contact with the big man before returning his stare to the one sitting in front of him, who had started to speak.

"Oh look, the smoothskin's rat came to look at me again." Another ghoul -Crowley, he was fairly certain- spoke up out of sight from somewhere across the table Carlo was sitting at.

"Eventually that thing is going to tear what's left of your face off."

"It won't do shit. She told it to leave everyone alone, didn't want to risk upsetting those fucks that kept her like a pet. Trust me, I don't have to worry about her fucking guard dog." Charon silently moved into the room, Crowley's eyes flicking amusedly towards him before directing them back to Carlo.

"You don't have to worry about the _small_ one, anyway."

"Small one?"

Charon lunged, snapping his arms around the smaller man and hauling him bodily out of the bar and down the stairs as he kicked and screamed, Dogmeat dancing around them and yipping happily. Winthrop shot out of an access panel a moment later, covered in a trailing cloud of dust and looking for Cerberus. He stalled completely when he saw what was happening.

"_Charon_? What the hell are you _doing_?"

Raising his voice so the other ghoul could hear him over the noise, he called back. "He tried to kill Cort. She's upstairs at Carol's with a gash a mile wide in her head, if you want to fucking check. Try not to slip on the fucking puddle of her _blood_ getting up there if you do."

"Wha-_What_?" Frantically beating the dirt off of himself, Winthrop ran upstairs, juddering to one side at the last second to avoid the wet spot. Charon shook his head and resumed dragging Carlo outside of the museum, who was still screaming, this time to the assembled crowd.

"You fucks, _HELP ME_!" One of the residents piped up as the massive ghoul switched a hand to his waistband and hoisted him higher.

"Not likely, bub. Most of us _like_ the weird little smoothskin and well. The rest ain't _that_ damned stupid."

Charon kicked the inner doors open and crossed the atrium, yanking Carlo loose when he managed to latch onto the circular desk before being dragged outside, the other man now starting to blubber.

You-you're going to kill me, fuck you're going to fucking _KILL ME_!"

"No, I'm not. I've gotten my hands filthy enough by hauling you out here, so we'll just let the giant green fuckers in the trenches scrag your rotten ass."

"You-you can't do that. Super Mutants don't attack us!" Charon snorted derisively, twisting his hands into the back of the other ghoul's shirt and belt for a better grip.

"Dumbshit. You don't get out much, _do_ you? You see, there's an interesting little fact about those fuckwads, Carlo. They'll go after _anything_ that gets into their territory, as long as it moves. Like a scrawny, airborne fuck will after he lands." Checking for movement on either side of the Museum, he calmly strode out into the ruined street, stopping before the opposite shoulder. Dogmeat was weaving in and around his legs, letting out eerie strings of laughing yelps and snapping next to the struggling man's face as he darted under him.

"You-you can't do this. What the hell do you care anyway, you big dumb asshole? You threw enough of those slick bastards out for Ahzrukhal! You did _worse_!"

"And what the fuck happened to him?" Charon paused, considering the reaction he was going to get out of Cort when she found out about what he was doing. Thinking about the amount of blood he had cleaned up and her claiming it was her fault solidified his decision. _I'd rather ask for forgiveness than permission. She always forgives me anyway, even when I don't deserve it_. Shrugging, he prepared himself to carry forward. "You could have fucking killed her. I am extremely, _extremely_ tired of things trying to kill her. If I had known any better while you were slagging her in the bar, I would have pitched _you_ down the damn stairs last time Ahzrukhal had me throw you out, instead of privately agreeing with you. I should just snap your neck and be done with it, but she'd hate that. She'll probably hate _this_, so I'll at least give you a running chance to be fair. If you can run after you touch the fuck down, anyway."

"She told you to do this didn't she, she owns your ass!" Carlo screamed out one last time as he felt himself being hefted up. "She's just some stupid smoothskin slaver BITCH!"

"She's _mine_." Hauling back, Charon spun in place a few times to pick up momentum and then launched the other man into a soaring arc, rapidly disappearing from sight as he came down flailing into one of the trenches. Smiling darkly at the resulting thump, he turned back to the Museum as a yell went up, Dogmeat smugly trotting beside him. "Good mutt."

"I SQUISH YOU ROTTEN MAN! RAAARG, STAY _STILL_!"

He nodded to Willow on the way back in, the woman standing in one of her usual spots and smoking. "Going to help him?"

She blew out a long stream of smoke and shook her head as gunshots started to ring out. "I don't shoot at the mutants, they don't shoot at me. He really try to kill the tourist?"

"Close enough."

"She tell you to do that?"

"No." Willow shrugged and went back to staring at the Mall.

Charon ran into Winthrop as soon as he made it past the inner doors, and he faced the same question that the woman outside had posed to him. "Charon, did Cort _tell_ you to-"

"No, she most certainly did _not_." He looked down at the other ghoul and spoke louder, wanting the rest of the remaining crowd to hear him. "My girl turned me completely loose once she hired me, so maybe any of the other assholes that liked to play 'trip the smoothskin' want to fucking remember that. I can now do exactly what I want, whenever I want, to _anyone _I want." Nodding to Winthrop, who was standing there snapping his mouth open and closed, he returned back upstairs to Cort, who was a great deal clearer and a lot more angry.

"_Charon_!" At her tone, he snapped to attention and straightened to his full height out of habit, then forced himself to relax. She couldn't see him doing it, and would have been irritated by it anyway if she could. The fact that he did not feel remorseful in the slightest for what he had done helped also. Wobbling up from her chair, she came over and tried to grasp for the rim of his armour, failing miserably. Wincing, Charon reached for her searching hand and placed it where she wanted to put it as Carol quietly slipped out the door behind him, letting himself be pulled down when she yanked. "What did you just DO?"

"Threw that fuck in with the Super Mutants."

"_WHAT_?"

"He attacked you, I took care of it. Besides, he _might_ get out." Rolling his eyes as she continued to fume, he reached down and picked her up.

"Put me down, you are NOT distracting me from this! I told you it was my fault, I couldn't see where I was go-" The ghoul shut her mouth up with his own, wanting comfort and quiet out of her at the same time. He only stopped when he felt her loosen up against him.

"No, it was not your fault. He could have fucking killed you. I wouldn't take it from one of the fucks shooting at you, and I certainly wasn't taking it from that slimy little shit. Now you're going to see Barrows, _again_." Cort suddenly wrapped her arms around his neck so tightly he almost felt like wheezing. Blinking, he shrugged a bit to get her to let up slightly, surprised at the sudden ferocity.

"You have to stay this time. Stay where I can hear you."

"No fucking kidding, jackass. You think I'm going to let you out of my sight here after that? Don't worry, I'm pretty sure Carol just went to get him. We're staying right here, and we don't have to go anywhere." Charon pressed his lips to hers again, deciding to expand on his affirmation to her. _We are not going anywhere until you're fucking fit and back to normal. I don't care if it takes another damned month. I don't care if it takes half a year. I'll wait. I'll always wait.  
_


	4. Passing the Buck

_Yay, all my chapters and the reviews are back! __ And thanks so much for the new reviews on the new installment and the first one! __That was super distressing for a while, lousy timing FF! So, with the way my shifts are I am going to try and make Tuesday update day. I may or may not try writing by hand at work(there's no way to fact check though, so it depends on what I'm writing), I have two fourteen hour shifts on the weekends, and let me tell you. They have the potential to drag out like blue stink._

_

* * *

_

**Dogmeat** was more than pleased with the improvement the big world was showing. He still couldn't get the ear thing right, and the dog was fairly certain he was still a few bits short of a full treat bag, but he had taken direction exceedingly well while taking care of the rancid-man. He had been thrilled when the big one asked him to lead the way to the meatsack, knowing that as another world he would probably do _something_, and, knowing who it was, that it was going to be _good_. When the gigantic twit wasn't getting himself tied up or straying away, he managed to be wonderfully vicious.

What had happened was beyond the animal's wildest dreams. He had expected the big one to tear the other apart, or blow him into chunks(and that would have been well enough, the dog thought, as long as there were pieces left over for himself to urinate on, announcing the rancid-man's status as being worthless even when dead, not fit to scavenge from). What had happened was even better. He had been dragged out by the big one like a sniveling whelp, and they had _taunted_ him. Dogmeat had laughed in his face, making his queer imitation of his first's happy sounds that he liked to do. And then the big one had even made the other _fly_, and oh, hadn't that been _fun_, hadn't that been just as fine as fresh blood on his face. Personally, he had behaved himself, not leaving a mark, snapping his teeth with immaculate precision. The fact that no one had interfered during the entire affair made him feel even better. He had been right in wanting to slay the stinking bastard, and everyone's submission proved it. The big world giving him the good words after everything had made it perfect.

Dogmeat wiggled until he was nearly beside himself at the thought of it all, watching another of the smelly people poking at his first, the blood-smelling one. This one he liked, it was the one who his first world invariably gravitated towards whenever she came into this place, and he was currently replacing the rags over her eyes while he snarled back and forth with the big world(the dog thought it had something to do with the big world being too slow on the pickup for the other's liking. Dogmeat could not disagree). He was one of the persons the dog classified as a near-moon; not travelling in their pack, but attentive to his first when she was around. So was the woman putting a bowl down for him. The sour woman glaring at them from the wall was not. He glared back, and the woman twitched her gaze down, feeling him look at her after a few moments. Once he had rolled up his lips, she scuttled away somewhere, and that was good. Doing more was impossible, because of his first world's commands, and the fact that sour-face was bowl-woman's moon. Dogmeat liked bowl-woman as well. She attended to his first and fed him, and _she_ knew how to scratch ears. Thinking about being fed, he blinked and turned back to the food she had put down for him as blood-smell finished and patted his first world, then snapped at the big world before leaving. There was meat in it, and that was very fine, and he made sure to clear everything up entirely after placing his head where his first's grasping hand could reach it, wiggling again when she gave him his perfect words. That was _best_, and so was he.

* * *

**Cort** was able to permanently remove the wrappings from her eyes after five days had elapsed. She had spent the time with the various people she had become accustomed to associating with, although this time Charon was conspicuously present for all of it, lurking like an over-sized gargoyle in some portion of whatever room she happened to be in. More or less everyone accepted the behaviour as perfectly normal, being used to the large ghoul standing motionless against the wall. There had been fifty years to get used to him standing motionless against walls. What there hadn't been time to get used to was his conduct _now_ when he was _away_ from the wall.

Charon's attestations to Greta shortly after Cort had hired him were entirely accurate; after their memories of his first weeks in Underworld had had a chance to fade, most people considered him part of the architecture(although balustrades and cornices generally did not make a practice of throwing people out on their asses when told to do so by an irate bartender). Some mentally slotted him in as a fleshy and taciturn version of Cerberus, not so much monstrous as mindless, silent and stupid. Only a few like Doctor Barrows had twigged to the fact that there was a lot more going on, up until Cort had blown in fifty years later. If still waters ran deep, Charon was practically an abyssal trench, and nobody had bothered to go swimming. Typically, she had dived right in, in more ways than one.

Admittedly, nearly everyone had known that Cort had shared a bed with him the last time she had come through, although Barrows, Graves and Carol were the only ones who knew why; the former two because Cort had told them, and the latter because she had been around the block a few times in the last two centuries. Being sweet did not preclude the pre-war ghoul from also being as sharp as a pin. None of them saw it as their business to air out the smoothskin's private laundry, for both ethical and personal reasons. The rest of the inhabitants tried explaining the incident to themselves in one of three ways, the most obvious reason, that the pair was involved, striking them as thoroughly impossible.

One, the smoothskin was too damn cheap or poor to pay for more than one bed. Some wondered why she didn't just make the ghoul sleep on the floor, but then decided that while definitely _weird_, she wasn't known for being mean.

Two, she was terrified that someone was going to try and kill her. This was plausible since there were residents who _had_ been trying to, or at least maim her for amusement value. Even asleep, Charon was terrifying enough that no one would go within five feet of him unless they absolutely had to, and since he had apparently been wrapped around the girl(only a handful had actually _seen_ them, and the rest were operating purely on conjecture), that definitely meant no one going near her, either. Some wondered if he was being used as a meat shield, and then most decided that since it was Charon, they really didn't care.

Three, she saw the sour, presumably slow-witted mercenary as a bipedal version of her dog. This seemed the most likely option. The kid was sweet, naive, latched onto anything that paid her attention, and popular opinion pegged her at more than a few molerats short of a burrow. The big ghoul listened like a dog, and had acted like one for Ahzrukhal. If the smoothskin was choosing to sleep with him like her _actual_ dog, well. While somewhat distasteful, it wasn't even _close_ to being as abhorrent as some of the tasks the deceased bar owner had had him perform. If the worst thing the nutty girl was doing with the brainwashed giant was conking out in close quarters, they were all getting off easy. Carlo's header into the trenches had reaffirmed that opinion slightly in the last week. However, their relief that Cort had not in fact ordered Charon to huck him into the Mall was stamped out at the thought that the man was now off of his leash, was a whole lot smarter than they had thought, and was now doing things of his own volition. The idea alone was unnerving enough to make several people feel a bit loose in the guts.

Of course, all of these perfectly logical, safe and somewhat acceptable hypotheses were shot entirely and resoundingly to hell the first time Charon picked Cort up in public and kissed her. Cort enthusiastically kissing him back totally napalmed whatever remaining shreds their jarred minds may have tried to hold onto, and also had some of the men holding onto something _else_ in private later(not that they hadn't before, since she had spent two weeks bouncing around in leather pants and a tank top. It just meant that they could now more easily imagine her being excited about it instead of screaming in horror).

It wasn't overly hard for them to shelve this new development into the character of the girl, once they thought about it. She had always been unusually comfortable in Underworld for a smoothskin, since truthfully, most of them would run out like a scalded cat whenever they had finished whatever business it was that had brought them in, if they didn't do something that would require a forced ejection. It _was_ hard to see the big man almost everyone had dismissed as being sub-human, that a lot had treated as such, acting like a relatively normal, feeling person. There was guilt involved, and shame, and for some irrational anger over the erroneous thought that they have been personally deceived by him. It was the reason none had accepted the indications that Cort and Charon had been involved; a hug, her smiling, his expression when looking at her. It had been easier to continue thinking of the ghoul as below them than to admit they were wrong, _very_ wrong, and did nothing to change themselves or his situation for half a century.

What all this boiled down to in the end was that people tried to converse with Charon about any number of things, and overall, they felt more affable and protective towards Cort. Aside from receiving a cool civility, nobody got anywhere with the former, with the baffling exception of Carol. For the latter, having a pretty smoothskin who was now without a doubt honest in her overtures of friendliness towards the residents was a welcome change from the treatment they normally received from non-ghouls, and a rare commodity. If the way the pair was currently going at it in the concourse was any indication, the kid was about as ghoul-friendly as you could _get_.

* * *

**Cort** nuzzled around the side of Charon's face, talking softly as he stroked her hair. "Everyone's staring, you know." Barrows had removed the bandages from her about ten minutes prior to them coming out into the concourse that morning, and while she did have to wear her sunglasses for the time being, she was ludicrously happy to have all of her sight back. As such, Charon was happy, and had picked her up for a kiss after she had dashed out of the clinic to see everything, delighted by how new everything appeared. The smile on her face had been irresistible to him.

"So fucking what? They can stare at me doing something I _like_ for once, instead of being some freakshow hulking against a wall. Half of them are probably shitting their pants trying to figure out what I may have heard over the years."

He smirked, and Cort smiled again. Five days in the dark had felt like forever, had felt like it was eating her alive, and she had missed his face. Seeing him made everything a thousand times better, and shoved the disjointed impulses that had been picking away at her to the back of her mind. Pulling back slightly, she looked at him avidly, taking in as much as possible. It was like finding water in the desert after subsisting for months on nothing but dust, and she bathed in the sight of him. For his part, Charon looked back, deciding that he would find somewhere dim and private for her so he could see her eyes without the glasses on. Or anything else.

"Sooo what can we do now? Metro Central tunnels? I bet those asshole Talons are in there again, if they were staking out the freaking Georgetown tunnels." She grinned, looking suddenly vicious and feeling more than a little unhinged. "I want to stalk. I want to _hunt, _I want to _slaught_-" Giving her head a shake, she struggled with herself, clawing her way back into a semblance of stability. _Nonono, none of that loony shit. You will be in control. You _are_ in control, it's not controlling you._ "I want to _scav_ up the leftovers, we need to make some caps."

"Yes, we do, and yes, those tunnels. They'll be perfect for you to get back up to speed with, nice, dark, and you know them." He set her down and they started walking back to Carol's, the ghouls around them trying to act normal, for the most part. One or two were still gaping, which both of them ignored completely.

Charon had watched Cort count their money out the day before to give herself something to do, and they _were _running low. His mouth quirked when he thought about her fussing over the tiny pile she had spread across their bed, patting them into two portions with her fingertips. She had stressed that anything she made or scavved was automatically half his, saying that was how it was supposed to work. He wasn't sure how she had come to that conclusion, but he went along with it since it seemed to be important to her, and agreeing had made her happy. He personally thought the idea was ridiculous, since everything he had or found automatically reverted to her ownership as his employer, including anything she gave him. Effectively, she was giving her own shit to herself.

Frowning as they went up the stairs, he calculated out the amount of work they would have to do to replenish the amount of caps she preferred to be carrying. A large portion of them had been used on their previous trip to Underworld, and Charon went through more to resupply from Durga before they left the Citadel, prioritizing those items as essential. As such, they had plenty of ammunition and medical supplies left, but they were still low on food. The only reason they weren't out of it entirely was because Carol had been feeding her at every opportunity, something the mercenary was incredibly grateful for. The woman had taken Cort's gaunt appearance entirely in stride, skillfully fussed her into eating whenever something was offered, and blithely chalked it up as future payment for delivering letters to Gob. Charon had refrained from making any forays out to hunt, not wanting to leave his employer alone while she was awake. She had become incredibly clingy since her sight was damaged, and couldn't stand it if she wasn't able to hear him nearby. He didn't want to leave her alone _period_, but how upset, how flat-out frantic she became now after losing track of him wasn't the way he wanted to do it.

Leaving while she was asleep was also not an option. He wasn't particularly worried about anyone hurting her, since he had convinced her to leave Dogmeat free to go after anyone threatening her, no matter who they were. He _was_ worried about her waking up and panicking when she found he wasn't there. Charon was reluctantly resigning himself to the fact that Cort was going to continue having nightmares for the foreseeable future. She was still being chased out of her sleep, but thankfully hadn't shrieked since the first time back at the Citadel, only sobbed quietly, fiercely holding onto him until she exhausted herself. It happened like clockwork each night, and after their second day in Underworld he was now instinctively waking up before she started to go off, which was the only good thing to come of it. It gave him a chance to grab her hands before she could start clawing at her face, trying to remove the dressings from her eyes as she babbled about something in the dark trying to swallow her, which she would plead with him in a heart-breaking whisper to kill.

Unable to do anything to prevent the bad dreams and lacking a way to fight them for her, he found the entire situation extremely upsetting. Charon had never run up against something that he couldn't eliminate for an employer, and his inability to do so now was galling, even if the threat physically did not exist. He was getting uncomfortably close to considering having a talk with Barrows about it, as much as he didn't want to admit that something could be wrong. Thinking about it now, he scowled, abruptly quashing the impulse to go see the doctor. _There's nothing wrong. She had nightmares and shit before too, remember? She just didn't tell you every time they happened._ Coming into Carol's, he felt his anxiety dissipate as he watched her deviate slightly for a hug from the woman, who clapped happily at her uncovered eyes, then shoved an apple at her before letting go. Once Cort woke up for the day, she was perfectly fine; sometimes distracted, drifting off as she listened for things, but fine. He pulled himself away from the unwanted musings as she grinned up at him, simultaneously making short work of the fruit and putting her armour on, talking with a cheek stuffed full of apple.

"Know what I forgot? Reilly still owes me money. We can go to Seward Square later and collect."

Charon rolled his eyes and started putting his own armour on after sorting out Dogmeat's. "And what entertaining shit do we have to drag ourselves through to get to that hellhole? It was so much fun visiting them the last time, I can't wait."

Rolling her eyes back, Cort flipped up her Pip-Boy and started poking at and talking to it. "I have _missed _you, yes I have! Have you missed me? Let's see. Uh, we can go through the Capitol Building at the end of the Mall, that would be kinda neat, bet it's big in there...we can get in by way of Anacostia Crossing...and we can get there by going through Pennsylvania Avenue, where the White House isn't anymore. Well, I could admire the hole that's probably left, I suppose." Biting her lip, she looked up at him, suddenly nervous. _I shouldn't decide, I don't trust it. No, trust myself. There's only me, _just_ me._ She winced, feeling her head start to ache, something that was happening with increasing frequency. _Just trust _him_, I can trust him_. "Which one do you want to take? You should pick."

Charon looked at her oddly before rattling off the reply. "Anacostia. It's familiar, and we can go to that rusting piece of crap on the way to Seward if you need to. We can try something different on the way back out." He furrowed up his brows, coming up against one of the rare occasions where Cort required a reminder about the fact that she was still his employer. She was shifting the responsibilities of her rank, and this was not the correct way of doing things. As much as he liked taking care of her needs, performing what she wanted him to do, it was inappropriate, and he had to say something, whether she liked it or not. "Cort, you should be choosing where we go. I know I rag your ass on it, but it's not my place to decide."

Trying not to fidget as he reached over to finish snapping her armour together from where she had paused, Cort felt uneasy and frustrated at his response, not feeling she was stable enough to make tactical decisions and definitely not wanting to tell him why. She knew something was fundamentally wrong with her, something extremely amiss in her head, but thinking about it made her feel painfully blurry around the edges. When she tried too hard to figure it out, she would suddenly find herself snapping back to reality, wondering where the last few minutes had gone and if she had done anything. She wasn't sure, but she thought the ghoul might have noticed a few of her little slips, and didn't want to give him anything else to worry about. "You've told me where to go before, to do things. And at the Citadel..." She trailed off as he winced.

"At the Citadel I did what I had to, and you know how difficult that was for me. With everything else, I've given you my _opinion_ when you've asked, and the things I've told you to do were things you _needed_ to do, but had forgotten about, or prioritized incorrectly. This is different. I can assist you in making the most prudent choices, but I can't make them _for_ you."

"But why? You can decide for me every once in a while, I trust you." Charon's hands stilled on her shoulders, and he gave her another odd look, this one surprised and somehow guarded.

"You trust _me_."

"Well duh, of course. Implicitly." She smiled and tilted her head, thinking back over their history. It felt like the ghoul had always been there, always known what to do, and always taken care of her, even when he had still disliked her. "I always have."

He gripped her armoured shoulders tighter for a moment, his mind stalling at the concept. People didn't trust him, they trusted his contract, which for a few had still turned out to be a fatal mistake. The only time he had heard the word used in relation to himself had been in sentences starting with 'I trust you won't', followed by something that was usually denigrating. Cort's admission, another in a long line of things she had said which made him feel as if he had taken a mallet to the forehead, was a first. _Fuck, she's a first for everything. I love her, so much. But she has to keep giving the orders, I can't do it without her, she has to know that. _Resisting the urge to crush her to him, he focused back on her, wanting to make sure he had gotten his point across. "That's...that's _good_, but it still doesn't change anything. _I_ need _you_ to be in charge."

I still don't understand." Charon said nothing, only moved his right hand down and gently pushed against her chest plating, over the spot where his contract rested inside of her. Cort looked down at it ruefully. _Oh, right. I'm the ol' ball and chain, literally_. "I'm wearing the pants, huh. No other options."

"You always wear pants. Wearing a dress makes you want to eat glass."

Taking in his deadpan expression, Cort couldn't decide if he was joking or not, then smiled, deciding his statement was amusing either way. _Oh God I love him, so much. But he has to take care of me, he has to be in charge, even if he doesn't know it. I don't know how much longer I can do this_. "Okay, well then I'll just phrase it different, fussypants. Next time, I'll ask, 'in your opinion, what would be the most tactically sound route to our destination?', or something like that. I can do that for you. Would that be better?"

This time he did crush her to him, burying his face in her hair. _Thank fuck she knows how to take care of me. I need her to_. "Much. Now let's go fuck shit up."


	5. Time and Tides

**Cort** and Charon spent three nights slowly going through Metro Central and the adjoining tunnels that she was already familiar with, killing everything they found and hauling back anything that could potentially be of any value, sleeping during the days to protect her eyes from any chance of being exposed to the still-painful sunlight. They had refrained from returning to Underworld in the interim, Cort choosing to barricade themselves into the washroom she had spent her first night with Charon in, needing the privacy. Knowing that her nightmares would continue, she wanted the freedom to cry without anyone seeing her or worrying about waking Carol or Greta up, although she had different reasons for not wanting to disturb them. Carol would be unnecessarily worried, Greta would probably be gleeful, and Cort wasn't sure she could stop herself from hurting the petty woman if she was antagonized by her. Seeking comfort from Charon as she always did after waking the first morning, she finally found the relief she needed as he also took advantage of their isolation, after hesitantly checking to see if he could once she had calmed down.

"You don't have to, if you don't want. I don't want to make you tired." If she had had any objections in the first place, they would have left as he spoke to her, the concern soft in his voice and his hand even softer on her side, seeing the desire for her clearly written over his face even as he tried to hide it.

"I'm already tired, and I always want. Besides, it'll make me feel better."

Cort was more than relieved to find that it did. The following evenings upon waking, she turned immediately to the ghoul as soon as her head had cleared enough to make sense of her surroundings, almost attacking him in her need. It burned out the horrible, slippery feelings in her mind, and had the added benefit of distracting the big man, who had started asking difficult questions about the things she had been babbling about whenever she woke, questions she definitely didn't want to try and answer. It was hard for him to notice if anything else was wrong with her and impossible to ask questions if she was writhing on top of him, biting for all she was worth. By the third day, Charon had started kissing her right before she awoke, trying to head off her distress preemptively, and she was relieved again to find that it worked. The hideous dreams weren't stopping, but thanks to him the terrified panic that had followed them had. It was hard for her to be panicked when he was biting her back, and impossible once he was in her.

Lying on their sides in the darkened room afterward, still entwined with him and coated in sweat, Cort decided that she wanted to get back to Megaton and spend more than a few weeks there if they could manage it. _If this is what passes for psychotherapy now, I want all of it I can get. I can deal with this, deal with myself, as long as I have him._ Pressing her face against his chest, she inhaled and let out a low groan.

Bemused and thoroughly satiated, Charon stroked her hair as she snuffled around, gently tugging snarls out of the black tufts. "What the fuck are you _doing_? You sound like a little molerat."

Cort stuck her tongue out and he grinned. "Oh gee, _thanks_. I was smelling you."

"Why." He knew the answer, but asked anyway, wanting to hear her say it.

"Because I like it. I think I'm ready to try for Seward Square tomorrow. I feel better." Thinking about it as she shuffled around and pulled at the blankets, she was pleasantly surprised to discover that she _did _feel better. Moving through the decrepit tunnels with her companions and getting things done, moving through her _life_ without the weight of someone else's expectations hanging over them was like a breath of fresh air. If it wasn't for the way her mind was acting up, Cort decided she could have felt completely free and uncomplicated for the first time in her life.

"Good. Are we coming back to Underworld after that, or going straight for Megaton?"

"Megaton. Why, you need to come back?"

He looked suddenly pensive, not being sure if she would approve the deviation he wanted take, it being something he would not normally do. "I thought I could kill a Mirelurk for Carol, there's some living next to the Reflecting Pool." Seeing her quizzical expression, he hurried to justify his request. "She takes care of you, and doesn't piss me the fuck off. She won't take caps, but she'd probably take a present. She could sell the meat for a shitload of them, there's no way any of those regular scrubs could bring one down by themselves. Quinn probably could, but he won't risk it, he's the only trader. Willow, maybe, but she wouldn't budge even if one of the fuckers walked up wearing a sign that said 'Eat Me.' If it's not a pack of smokes or attacking Underworld, she doesn't give a shit."

"Makes sense. She's not Alice and this sure as hell ain't Wonderland." She watched his expression shift around as he tried to parse the analogy she had made, looking confused and then questioning. "It's in a book, I'll tell you the story later. That's an extremely good idea, by the way, and we'll go do that tomorrow since we're here right now. It's very thoughtful of you, and I know she'd appreciate it, a lot." Looking relieved at her answer, he went back to stroking her hair, and she inclined her head so he could pull wherever he wanted, thinking about what he had asked. _Thoughtful? Sweet Jesus, admit it. It's a freaking quantum leap, is what it is._ For all that he had hated it, spending a month on the fly in the Citadel had seemed to give the ghoul a better grasp on how to interact with other people, and it pleased her, knowing the skill might make certain things easier for him. Nice for the sake of nice was still something that paid off, in her books, even if she wasn't feeling very nice anymore. "What about Barrows? He takes care of me."

"_His_ gift is me refraining from using my shotgun to prospect up his _fucking_ ass. He _does_ piss me the fuck off." Suddenly annoyed, he worked his brows together and started mentally running through the different methods he could possibly use to irritate the doctor in future _without_ having Cort catch on to what he was doing. Unsurprisingly, there weren't many. While clueless in regards to some matters, she was blisteringly sharp when it came to figuring out what he was thinking, reading his body language like an open book. He wasn't sure if he should feel extremely irritated or impressed by that, although he was leaning towards irritated. It made it hard to get things past her when he wanted to.

Smiling as he scowled, Cort yawned and rolled her shoulders, tired. _Okay, so sort of a better grasp. It's still something_. "We can go up tomorrow when it gets dark and off one of the crabs. Then we'll go see Reilly, and then we'll go home." Closing her eyes, she sighed. "That'll be nice, it can _be_ home now. It feels like forever since I've been there." She worked up her face into something similar to the ghoul's. _It really has been ages since I've been back there...two whole months as of right now. I don't know if I've ever been gone this long before. _ "I hope Gob's alright. Moriarty was mad as hell at me the last time I was there. If he's roughed him up any, I'll break his Goddamned neck. Or shoot him. Maybe something delightfully appropriate that he won't see coming."

Charon snorted as she plotted. Cort had relayed the details of her last encounter with the man during one of their quests to or from somewhere. "Well most people don't take too kindly to being blackmailed, and who gives a fuck if he's mad? I can't believe you didn't shoot him once you found out you had ended up with _that_ in your mouth." The ghoul had been spared from a similar experience due to her quick actions, and he looked at her grimly. "_I'll_ fucking shoot him for that shit." His face suddenly cleared into an interesting combination of beatific and fiendish. "Or, maybe I can find the nest those fucking ants around the gate came from, and stick him in it for you. Head first."

"Oh no you _don't_. You're not pulling shit like that again. I hate the bastard but he hasn't done anything to me directly yet, so there's no good excuse I can give to Simms, or anyone else if you off him." Cort's indignation was rather spoiled by the giggles she was letting out, thinking about how the Irishman's legs would windmill while his face was being eaten off, and she struggled to get herself back into a serious tone. "And it has to be me, they'd probably try to lynch you for it." She was definitely serious now, approaching somber. "I'll figure something out. I have to get Gob free, he'll be tied to that fuck until one of them dies. I _won't_ let it be him. I'll cut him loose somehow." She smiled a strangely barren little smile, and let her mind wander. _I'll cut Moriarty up if I have to. Into pieces. I can keep him awake for that, I know how to tie everything off, everything working so he can see it a-_

"Cort?" Feeling uneasy, Charon reached over and rubbed behind her clipped ear, not liking the way her face was blanking out. _Tired. She's just tired, talking for too long. Next time I'll make her go back to sleep sooner_. "Come on, snap out of it."

Blinking, she stiffened up and focused her eyes on him, looking bewildered. "Huh? Sorry, where was I?"

"You were going to sleep. It's very, very late for you right now."Relaxing as he tucked one of their worn blankets around her, she sighed and burrowed in closer, closing her sleepy but now thankfully alert eyes.

"No, I was thinking about Gob. And getting him out. We need to get him out, he's the reason..reas'n...you."

Charon snorted quietly as she started to snore, and shut his own eyes after checking to make sure Dogmeat was still pressed against the barred door, his ears making their minute scanning movements as he slept. Holding Cort tighter, he let himself slip off as he dismissed her worries along with his own, soothed by the warmth of her. _We'll get the damned bartender out when you're back to the way you were. He can fucking wait, it's not like we run out of time. Little shit's probably fine, anyway, he's lasted this long._

_

* * *

_

**"Gob!** Get hopping boyo, you're moving slower than shit today." Moriarty smiled broadly at him from his office before ducking back into it, Jericho piping up from his usual spot at the end of the bar and dangling his empty glass.

"You heard him, rotface, heave to it." Reaching out for the glass, he quickly retreated again, cringing when the ex-raider pulled back his arm and made as if to throw the heavy tumbler at him. Jericho stopped the motion at the last second and laughed coarsely before he set it down. "Chickenshit. Whiskey again."

"Yessir." Grabbing it, Gob moved back across the bar, trying not to breathe too deeply, his ribs still screaming in protest at the one he had reflexively pulled in when he thought he was about to be struck. They always hurt now, along with most of everything else. Slopping the liquor into the smeared glass, he returned it and then fell into polishing the rest stacked up behind the bar, the nervous habit making him look busy and keeping him from having to think too hard, about anything. About what he was going through. Gob was definitely not fine.

He was existing in a state of pure hell.

After the beating he had received on Cort's last day in Megaton, he had thought the worst of it was over, but it hadn't been, not by a long shot. He had no idea how it could have _been_ any worse, but it was. When the kid had clashed with Moriarty and won, when she had _bested _him and walked away with a smile, something in the Irishman had snapped loose, and he was keeping up on his word to make sure the ghoul was in a fine state for her to come back to. Every other day he was subjected to another series of punches that did no lasting damage except to provide an unending, overlapping terminal ache that never left. Moriarty knew how to pummel someone without leaving a mark, and when he didn't make use of the knowledge, nobody who frequented the saloon was familiar enough with how ghoulified flesh looked to notice when it was injured, if anyone had cared to. Moira had started suspecting something was wrong, he was sure of it. She was the only patron who regularly looked at him, the nutty woman finding ghouls irresistibly fascinating. One night about a month into his torture, Moriarty had noticed her looking thoughtfully at his bruised face, looking _hard_, and unceremoniously ejected her from the building, banning her for driving away business 'with her infernal chatter'. It being Moira, everyone took that as a plausible excuse.

The only other person who knew what was going on, was _really_ going on, was Nova. Gob looked up from his glass and rag and over to the redhead in the corner, who blearily looked back over to him and tried to smile. She had been close to going to get Simms, telling him she would one evening after pulling him off of the floor when he was too beat up to stand up, saying she would scream her head off until he did something. Apparently, like the caps he had given back to Cort, Moriarty had heard that too. He wouldn't hit her, since a beat-up smoothskin, whore or no, definitely _would_ get the Sherriff's attention. But suddenly, Nova had somehow ended up with all the Jet she could huff the next day, and was now perpetually too high to care about anything, drugged into apathy. Gob didn't blame her, didn't have the heart to, knowing she was stuck in her own hell, in some ways much, much worse than his. She still looked after him, or tried to when she came down enough, and she was the only other person who was with him. He thought he might love her for that.

_I should have asked Cort when she was here last to get her out. She could have taken her to be with Silver. Or anyone else. Anywhere but here._

"Hey ghoul! Beers." Two Wastelanders came out of the drowsy morning light and slipped up to the bar, and he hurried to bring up what they wanted, collecting the caps they dumped onto the scarred wood. He knew without looking that Moriarty had poked his head out again, and he rapidly counted through them as he pushed them into the till, making sure they each made a noise as they hit. Finishing, he returned to what he had been doing. All of them had been there, and he knew again without looking that the head behind him was now gone. Turning, he checked anyway. Nothing. Good. Reaching under the counter, he pulled out a tumbler that was tucked behind everything else, placed far enough back that it would never be used, or easily noticed. There was a split running through the heavy base, put there by Cort on her first visit into the saloon, and Gob quickly and furtively hugged the glass to his chest before starting to polish it.

He knew she was out there, somewhere in the Wasteland. He had heard Three Dog talking about her. Moriarty left the radio running as a taunt, saying things like 'Looks like she's forgotten all about her poor wee rotten man, bucko!' or 'Out living the high life with dear old Dad. What do you want to bet she never comes back, hmm?'. He had stayed silent and hung his head, pretending to be cowed, not wanting to provoke him into taking the radio away, hiding his happiness that Cort had found James, gotten what she wanted. He thanked himself for doing so later, hearing about Project Purity being overrun and knowing she escaped from it. Almost everyone coming into the bar now was nervous, talking about the Enclave being everywhere, and even Three Dog sounded like he was shitting his pants. Gob knew that was probably why Cort hadn't come back yet, she was out battling them, and imagined how wonderful she must've looked, fighting her way out of the Jefferson. He was getting good at that, seeing her in his head, cocky, invincible and larger than life. It made the days go by faster. He needed that today.

The ghoul shut his eyes and held the glass tighter. Today. Today was Thursday. Thursday meant he was going to get whaled on as soon as they closed for the night, and before the last patron had made it off the ramp outside the door, he would be knocked flat. Moriarty was nothing if not efficient. Gob would say nothing when the man was finished, only stare up sullenly, chalky eyes defiant. Eventually, he thought it would provoke him into resuming the beating until he was crippled permanently, or dead. God help him, Gob couldn't bring himself to stop doing it. It would mean giving up. He couldn't give up. He had to keep going for Cort. She would come back, and fix everything. She would get Nova out, and maybe him too. He would somehow find the guts to ask if she agreed to save Nova, she _had_ to save Nova, and he knew she would say yes, not caring about what he was. He knew she wouldn't, he was positive. She had always been kind to him, even_ touched_ him, and liked ghouls. She had even shown up with _Charon_, for Chrissakes, who had almost looked _happy_, and he was a total bastard who hated everyone. If she could manage to get the hostile merc away from Ahzrukhal, she could do the same for him, and he was positive he could be better company. He would make it for her because he had to, because she was coming for him, and it was worth suffering through this to see what she would do to Moriarty. But oh sweet _Jesus, _the days felt so long to him now. He was almost ready for everything to just stop, tired of it all, and hoped she would hurry up.

After fifteen years of abuse, Gob was finally breaking down.


	6. Let's Go See the Man from Kentucky

**Crouching** down with the Washington Monument looming out of the dark directly behind her, hands firmly buried in the guts of a Mirelurk, Cort raised her head and looked around for Dogmeat. "C'mere honey, Momma's all smeared up again." Yipping, the dog braced one foot on her thigh and started slapping his tongue against her visor, clearing the mess from it. She had discovered that the giant crabs had a tendency to _squirt_ when going inside them after meat other than their giant claws, and this was the third time she had gotten Dogmeat to take care of the problem. Charon was using a rag, having vehemently objected to the dog slobbering over his face when Cort had encouraged him to give the ghoul the same treatment. Grinning at him as he glowered, she turned her eyes back to watch the tongue smacking into the plastic, the colour changing from blue to muted pink as she looked over the rim of her sunglasses. "What, this isn't that bad!"

"What? Your helmet has a damned visor, is _what_. He fucking _licked_ the inside of my mouth." Turning his head, the ghoul made a disgusted face and spat for what she thought was the fifth time.

"So? That's what you get for talking while he was trying to clean you off. Besides, you like it when _I_ do that." Grinning wider as he shook his head slowly and let out a colourful string of profanity at her, she looked around in the dusky evening light and put her hands back into the carcass as Dogmeat finished his ablutions. It was the tail end of February, and the nights were long enough to allow a large amount of work to be done before she had to go to ground again. _Good thing I don't have problems with the dark or tunnels. One advantage to growing up in a tin can. The dark, I like the dark._ Attracting a Mirelurk had been no problem, Charon splashing around near the nesting hole to draw one out and then socking his shotgun into its tiny face when it emerged. He had then dragged the half-shattered creature back to the foot of the Monument, hauling it from of the water and clear of the radiation seeping out of it to keep Cort from soaking up too much of it. The last thing he had wanted to do was make her lose her lunch over a bag of Rad-Away, something she had been more than willing to agree to, for that and another reason. She was perfectly capable of taking one of the monsters out on her own, having done it before with a 10mm and half her marbles out of the bag, but since it was his idea and had looked so quietly proud of himself, she had been more than willing to let her own slide.

Finishing after a few more quiet moments had passed, Cort turned her attention to the rest of her armour and her repeater, polishing the scrollwork clean. Looking at the inscription and at their surroundings, she suddenly hooted with delight as something occurred to her. "Hey! I have a fantastic, _wonderful_ idea."

"_Joy_." Charon rolled his eyes and kept sawing away pieces of shell, not really irritated this time at the thought of where she might want to go haring off to. She sounded happy, and happy was good. "What's your idiotic plan this time."

Sitting back on her heels, she pointed to the far end of the Reflecting Pool, where a row of marble columns gleamed out of the dusk like a distant and stately set of white trees. "We can go see the Lincoln Memorial. He's my favourite president, him and Polk, although that's just because it's a fun name. _Paholk_." Cort popped her lips out and grinned, looking at him. "He did all sorts of things, Lincoln, well Polk too, but I mean the former. His wife was Mary Todd, and she ended up going sort of crazy. But he loved her anyway." She laughed again, a normal one, and wistfully turned her face up to the stars. "I've got time now, and it's right _there_, it won't take long. I've got all the time in the world, and no reason to hurry through it."

Looking down towards the crumbling structure, he eyed the possible approaches to it critically. "It won't take long as long as there's nothing living in it, and I already know that's out of the question. It's too intact not to have something squatting in there."

Cort nonchalantly flapped both her hands with her head still tilted back, the movement unbalancing her so that she tipped back onto her rear. "Oof. Well. Like we can't handle whatever it might be. We can go down, have a look, then be back by dawn to give Carol your gift." She pouted for a moment. "I still think we should give Barrows something, he wouldn't let me pay either."

Scowling, the ghoul came over and fussily pulled her up. "_No_. You have given him fucking quite enough already. Get your shit on, we'll go play tourist."

Packing everything up and dislodging the remaining gore, the three of them started heading for the Lincoln Memorial, stealthily moving up towards the right hand side of the water. Cort deviated long enough to creep over to the tiny secondary outpost behind the Washington Monument where a Brotherhood member with a Mini-Gun was stationed, coming back a moment later. "It's someone we know, although I've got no sweet clue who it is, frigging helmet. I didn't want to be rude and ask. He said there's people in the Lincoln, but they're not hostile, might want to do business. From what he can see back here, they moved in with a lot of supplies a little while ago, cleared out the Super Mutants. He also says hi."

Looking over, Charon nodded his head in response to a short wave, feeling a small flush of unreality wash over him during the exchange. "Not hostile to smoothskins then. It remains to be fucking seen what they'll be after catching sight of me."

Adjusting the cover on her Pip-Boy so she could see it while they were moving, Cort brought up her biological detector and haughtily raised an eyebrow. "They'll be dead if they're anything less than the proper and respectful level of civility meeting company demands."

"You're fucking looped."

The side of her face ticced disturbingly before settling into a grin, there and gone in a flash, unnoticed in the dark. "Definitely. But that doesn't mean that I haven't been able to retain my manners. Come on, let's _go_! I want to see if I can crawl right in his lap. If it's too high you can give me a boost, kay?" Clapping her hands excitedly, she bounced in place, giggling like a little girl.

"_What_? Oh for fuck's sakes. Yeah, that's _real_ mannerly."

"_Heeeh_."

* * *

**"That's** close enough. What the hell are you doing wandering around here?" The three of them froze. The voice was firm, and so was the light reflecting off the hunting rifle a man was training towards them, stationed well in front of the Lincoln Memorial behind a small wall of sandbags he had just popped out from.

Looking to Charon, she tilted her Pip-Boy enough so he could see the readings on them were still a cool green, and he relaxed his grip on his shotgun. With that done, she turned back to the indistinct figure. _Right, might as well talk myself up_. "Curious, wanted to take a closer look at the ruins, I haven't been to this part of the city before. That and a friend told me you might be interested in trading, do a little business." Cort grinned, thinking of Winthrop. She had pulled even more scrap out from the Metro and cached it for him. _And I can't forget Moira, I did all that batty shit for her._ "I'm quite competent at getting things that people need." The man shook his head, looking at them like they were crazy. Cort decided she couldn't have quite the same objections to that anymore, but found it irritating nonetheless.

"Curiosity can get a Wastelander killed, and you'll have to talk to Mister Walker first about the business end. Come on through, and stick to the dirt path. Everything else is mined and we have orders to shoot first and loot the bodies after." Dropping his rifle, he nodded. "I'll put away mine, you put away yours, and you can come on up."

Nodding back, she complied, watching the ghoul grudgingly copy her a second later. "Alrighty."

Walking up to him with Charon following behind, the man suddenly jerked back violently, finally having gotten an adequate look at the nature of her companion. "Holy mother...is he _yours_?"

Cort shrugged. _Well, tell the truth, shame the Devil_. "Yes."

"Where the hell did you pick him up?" Cort decided to respond with formal politeness, retreating into usual her comfort zone, Charon settling into his own of complete and hostile silence.

"I acquired him in Underworld." He looked at her admiringly, and she looked at him warily. That wasn't the reception she had been expecting, by a long shot. As nice as it was, it seemed too far on the side of fortuitous for her liking. "Sooo may I go and speak with Mister Walker?"

"Sure, just follow me."

"Thank you kindly, Mister..."

"Just call me Silas."

"Silas." Coming closer, Cort got a better look at him. He was a sharp-faced man, wearing reinforced leather armour and a bandanna. Checking her right hand to make sure it was clean, she held it out politely. "My name is Cort."

Receiving another odd look and a relatively normal handshake, she followed along behind him, trying to see inside the Memorial as Dogmeat heeled beside her. It was too dark to see anything except the vague shape of something large towards the back, the shadow broken up by those of people moving inside. Heading around the path, Silas led them to a maintenance door set into the base of the Memorial, motioning them through and following behind.

"Mister Walker, girl here wants to talk to you about doing some business. Might be worthwhile, she's managed to get one big mother of a slave out of the ghoul city itself."

"Oh _really_."

Cort froze. _Oh sweet Christ._ Aside from being coated in metal armour, Leroy Walker was dark-skinned, had a goatee, and an extremely well maintained combat shotgun. _She_ had a very much clearer idea of the company they had just walked into. _Mind your manners, mind your manners. Oh sweet crippity crap._ Walker was eying both of them speculatively, and she forced herself to remain calm, fixing a cocky smile on her face and pointedly keeping her eyes away from Charon. Compounding the pile they had walked into, two more of what were now obviously slavers entered the room and headed towards a table at the far end, sitting down to eat. She felt the bottom drop out of her stomach, and pushed away the insane anger she felt floating at the sides of her brain. _No, NO, I'm in control. We can't handle this many like this. Not if all of us are going to get out of here, not with another scattergun in the mix, and not if I slip. I do not have _time_ to slip, I have my family to protect._

Coming over to them as Cort won her internal battle, Walker took an appreciative and slightly awe-filled look at the ghoul. "Holy-he _is _one big mother. How the hell did you manage that one, girlie? Ghouls are next to impossible to deal with, either truculent or stupid or both." Walker snorted. "And they sell like shit. It's the stench. Easier to just put them down."

"Oh I don't notice much, I ah, had an accident with some Abraxo when I was younger. Can't smell a thing." Cort changed her smile into something vaguely coy, fighting to keep herself under control until she could figure her next move out, for now just scrambling to make Charon appear valuable. With the door blocked by Silas and outnumbered in a small room, bolting was just as out of the question as throwing down. "As for the rest, uh, sorry, my secret. It's not hard though, you just have to know how to train them, and they really are quite underrated. Strong, they don't eat much, and cheap as anything to fix up. Just find some dirty water and you're all set to go!" Feeling like she was dying inside, she turned to face the ghoul and fought down another spike of alarm. His face was completely blank, and he looked almost folded in on himself.

"And no problems with him obeying you? Even without a collar?"

_Truth is the best lie, truth is the best lie, oh God_. "Oh no, he's quite well behaved, intimidates opponents, obeys any command, no matter what it is, and I mean anything. The perfect bodyguard." Glancing over her shoulder again and taking in her companion's vapid expression, she did what she hoped was playing along. "Not too bright though, you see. It helps with ah, training them."

"How about a demonstration then?"

_Ah-oh. Oh, shit. I could order him to fucking blow your head off, you sonofabitch, how would that strike you?_ "What were you thinking of?" Walker looked at her speculatively, grinning in a way that she didn't like, at all. It made her feel like meat on a dirty plate.

"Oh, let's try something _impressive_. Have him slice his arm up."

"Alrighty. Charon?"

He swung his head in her direction, replacing the blank stare with a look of dull and eager stupidity that made her feel almost violently ill, his normally crisp voice obscenely slurred. "Miss."

"Why don't you shoo.._show_ them how loyal you are, hmm? Please?" _Please do something amazing. Please don't do what I know you're going to have to do_.

"Yesmiss." Pulling his combat knife out, Charon dashed her wild hopes and immediately started sawing briskly across his left arm, blood streaming out of the jagged rents and pattering quietly on the floor. Cort sunk her teeth into her tongue hard enough to taste her own as it started running down his elbow to drip onto his boot, fighting to hold down a shriek as she kept smiling, this time approvingly.

Walker tilted his head, amused as the ghoul rotated his arm and started up the other side, his expression unchanging as he tore into the intact flesh there. "Well _damn_. Guess you were playing straight with me."

"Of course. You just have to know how to handle them. Charon, you may stop now."

"Yesmiss_thankyou_miss." Wiping the knife off on his thigh, he replaced it in his boot, ignoring the blood now dribbling down off of his fingertips as he returned to staring dumbly into space. Cort had to bite herself all over again to keep from grabbing his hand and blowing everyone else away.

Crossing his arms, the head slaver settled himself down to business. "Would you consider selling? He's impressive enough to keep for display, even if I couldn't move him."

"Not for the near future, he's too useful for what I'm doing right now. Having him around cuts a decent swath for little old me. Let's just say a lady on her own has to put up with certain...unmannerly attention that is quite adequately mitigated by the presence of a walking corpse." Cort turned around more fully, trying to shield her face and look at Charon, and Walker's face suddenly brightened, getting his first clear look at her pack and the rifles tied to it.

"Well lookie lookie here...wherever did you pick up that lovely old rifle?"

Turing back before he could reach for it, she pushed her face into what she hoped looked like mild interest. "Hmm? Oh, there's a few museums around, lots of artifacts. One of the reasons I was curious about inspecting the Memorial, you see. Piqued my curiosity."

Walker leaned forward, intent and suddenly avid. "I'd _definitely_ be willing to purchase it off you, as well as any other Lincoln artifacts you may have found."

"Oh? Do tell. It's like I was telling Silas here, I'm exceptionally good at acquiring difficult or unique items." Cort kept her face frozen in an expression of polite detachment, listening to him explain why he wanted the artifacts, his voice haunted by the off-tempo counterpoint of Charon's congealing blood dripping sluggishly onto the tiled floor. Walker and his party of six slavers had moved into the Lincoln Memorial to prevent escaped slaves from occupying it and using it as a symbol of hope for their rebellion, and he had decided to go one step further, trying to eradicate any and all evidence that the president had even existed. She felt sickened as he outlined just how far he wanted to go.

"Eventually, we'll work on pulling the whole Memorial down, that's another reason why we've occupied it. What better way to crush the bastards than wiping out any proof their 'Great Emancipator' even existed? So, do you think you might be willing to make an agreement? I'll pay well for anything you bring in."

"Sure. I'm already quite sure I've got more than a few items I can bring you back tomorrow, if it suits you." He smiled broadly, and she spent a split second wondering if it was possible for a man to choke to death on broken teeth.

"Suits me fine. Just come right back around, and maybe if I'm satisfied with your uh, _work_, we can satisfy your curiosity."

Forcing herself to offer her hand again as he gave her a look that brought back the feeling she was a piece of flesh, Cort shook his and then tipped a lazy salute, following Silas out the door. "I'll be back next evening. _Pleasure_ doing business with you." Hearing it shut behind her, she absently noted the ghoul moving into a cover position as she pulled her silenced 10mm out of its holster, aiming it squarely at the back the guard's head as she walked quietly behind him.

"Well, that's not too bad kid, you'll make yourself some caps."

Cort perked her voice up, and gently squeezed the trigger for each excited word, covering the soft _whups_ of the slugs moving through the suppressor. "Yes! It's. Just. Lovely!" Faking a sneeze to cover him hitting the ground, she turned back to Charon and Dogmeat. She felt warm, whole and righteously indignant. _I feel like me. Welcome back, me. Am I staying? _ "Throw grenades through the door, blow them to hell. If Walker's alive, leave him that way until I get back. And you come with Momma. Rip them to shreds. Every last one." Socking the pistol back into place, she hauled out her repeater and made for the main stairs as the big man wordlessly pulled a handful of grenades out of the pouches on his waist, the dog streaking past her and into the darkened hall behind the columns. She heard the door slam shut again and had time to hear a scream cut off by the explosions before she pumped a slug into the face of another slaver, a screech terminating in a gurgle telling her Dogmeat had found his own target. Dimly, she registered several shotgun blasts, and wondered why the last sounded oddly amplified before something new distracted her.

Grunting as a bullet hit the plating on her chest, she spun, shooting from the hip at the last man, a blood-soaked muzzle darting out of the gloom to tear at the back of his leg a second later. Crowing, she grinned up at Dogmeat as he brought him down, surging up to wrap his mouth around the head. "Momma's best boy!" Turning on her heel as the dog snarled and started ripping, she went back to the maintenance area, pushing through the battered door. The room was now definitely much worse for wear, one side colourfully decorated in what she decided were entrails. It was hard to tell, looking at the irregular pieces, everyone in the room now mixed with everyone else. Tilting her head, she thought she spotted skull in the ceiling tiles.

Charon was standing towards the back with a combat shotgun in each hand, gesturing her towards the now overturned table with one of them, and the partially inverted form of Walker scrabbling against it. He had apparently dived for cover and not quite made it. His knees were also missing, for the most part, explaining the doubled shot she had heard. Cort placed her free hand on one of her own, squatted down next to him and smiled brightly. "Well! Looks like I was right about that metal armour being pretty good protection. Not good enough though. I suppose we're not calling you Mister anymore. Or Walker. Aww, you're just _totally_ screwed, aren't you."

The slaver coughed, weakly grabbing for her legs, his hands falling as she delicately shook him loose and backed up slightly. "You fucking stupid _bitch_. You're dead. You have no idea who you're dealing with."

"I believe I'm dealing with an eviscerated eunuch who intimidated me into getting my significant other to cut himself up."

"Your _what_?"

Reaching a hand out, she felt Charon take it in his own a moment later, simultaneously comforted and horrified by the sticky, wet grip. "You heard me. Do you know who _you're_ dealing with? A shit-kicking lunatic Vault dweller who has a raging case of hero worship for ol' Honest Abe. Basically, the one aha, _bitch_, you wish you'd never fucking _met_." Letting go, she impulsively reached out and smeared the ghoul's blood into Walker's face, pressing hard, jerking her hand away when he tried to bite it.

"Jones will find you and have you slaved out for ten caps a fuck, you know that? Oh, they'll have a lot of fun with that sweet ass." His eyes seethed with hate, and she drank it in, reveling in it while she laughed at his threat.

"I could have some fun with _you_, I really could, but I'd like to think I've at least got some small capacity to learn from my mistakes. And I'm bored with you anyway. Time to create some poetic justice and greatly emancipate your face."

* * *

**Walker's** last sight was that of Lincoln's repeater leveled against his head, his last thought a strong denial that it was ending like this. He had had _plans_, for fuck's sakes, good ones that shouldn't have been brought apart by some _stupid_ bi-

There was sweet laugh, a high ringing peal, and then there was nothing.


	7. Tempus Fugit

_Thanks for the new reviews, favs and alerts folks, and hello new readers! crazymike 98: You'll see something like this stuff coming up, since we're heading into the grey moral areas of the Pitt. ;) Hope you like em._

* * *

**Casting** about the goresplattered room and shouldering her repeater, Cort decided that there wasn't much in the way of things to salvage, Charon's bundle of grenades having obliterated just about everything. Moving to the door, she called over her shoulder to the ghoul, feeling ashamed and inadequate and not quite ready to look him in the eye. "Go...go check the perimeter for traps after you check in here for anything useful. I'm going to go see if there's anything worthwhile up top." Dogmeat was waiting on the other side, happy and slathered with blood, and she brightened slightly. "You did good, yes you did. Best ever." Whuffing, the animal heeled in beside her as she retraced her steps back to the front of the Memorial, stopping before the first wide step and looking up. Looking at the shape looming out of the dark, the seated figure, she suddenly smiled and then bolted up the stairs, Dogmeat surging beside her as she pounded past the columns, flicking on her Pip-Boy light. "Woohooo! Score one for Lincoln, one for me! This is _fantas_...tic."

She skidded to a halt in front of the statue as the light washed over it, and felt another part of her old self slip away in a burst of emotion. It wasn't anger, or a bout of her dark lunacy, just an overwhelming sense of disappointment and fatigue. The head was missing, the rest of the figure sitting there like a disfigured corpse, like the ones she had just _made_, and Cort suddenly felt the weight of the ruined world on her shoulders. _I feel like I did when I found out Santa wasn't real. Isn't that stupid._ "Fucking _stupid_. Stupid, _stupid_ little girl." She didn't turn as Charon came up next to her a few minutes later, returning from his search of the perimeter. He had apparently been successful, one of his large hands clutching several mines as he carefully deposited them into his pack. "Everything _sucks_, Charon. Why does everything have to suck?" The ghoul glanced towards the statue and then regarded her silently, still not having said anything since his slurred obeisances in the maintenance area under the Memorial. After removing the pack from her shoulders, he climbed up on the plinth and grabbed her under the arms, neatly swinging her up and into the statue's lap, hoisting himself up to sit beside her a second later. When some time had passed, she fished a bottle of glowing water out of a belt pouch, took his injured arm and slowly started cleaning off the clots of blood. "I'm sorry. I won't decide to go anywhere like this again."

* * *

**Sighing**, Charon watched her patting at the rents in his flesh, the radiation soaking into him like a balm. None of them had been injured -well, not a _lot_, or by their opponents- and Cort had skillfully figured out what he had been telling her, silently acting along with what had always been the most expected behaviour out of him from those dealing with his previous employers, and some _of _those previous employers. He was moderately pleased that he could still pull off the sloppy, dull-witted charade, something he had perfected while still human. He was not pleased with how deflated his current employer looked. "Why not? You did good, got what you wanted, and we eliminated some filth. I even found you a-"

Cort cut him off, her voice full of self-loathing. "I..good? _Good_? You got hurt, and I couldn't stop it, I fucking _agreed_ to it. And you had to hear me say those _things_."

He shrugged. "It's nothing compared to other crap I've gone through. Did you mean any of it?"

"_No_!"

"Then stop getting your fucking drawers in a twist. I got my own back on them. I told you, you did good. They probably would have tried to enslave you and blow me away if it wasn't for your motor-mouthing." His face darkened. "There wasn't a damned thing else I could do with you in the middle _except_ stand around like a dumb shit and let you handle it."

"I didn't like you doing...that."

Charon knew she wasn't only referring to him slicing his arm. "I didn't like it either, or the fact that I've had enough practice to do it well. But now it's done." He smiled cynically and rasped loosely, trying to ridicule himself for performing the foolish act and make her and himself feel better. "Yesmiss_done_miss_yours_miss." He regretted it immediately, seeing her face knot up, intensely distressed.

"_Don't_. Just don't. I have a name, and I don't own you."

He held back a bark of laughter, knowing she would take it the wrong way. _Fuck. For the first time in my life, I could disagree with that and be happy_. Clearing his throat, he carefully enunciated his next words, making her name sound hard and sharp in his mouth. "_Cort_. My beautiful Cort." Working her helmet loose with his free hand and setting it down, he buried his fingers in her hair and tugged. She responded by looking at him warily, not quite the reaction he had been after. "What?"

"You're being very nice to me."

He raised an eyebrow. "You're complaining?"

"_Normally_, you'd be yelling right now and referring to me as a fucking idiot."

"I like to operate under the massive delusion that I can still occasionally surprise you." He sighed. _Normally_, his yelling was prompted by her cocky attitude after doing something impulsive, angry that she had been foolish. Now, she looked emotionally whipped, and hadn't done anything wrong, only been stupidly, wonderfully hopeful. The entire encounter seemed to have knocked the wind out of her sails, her earlier excitement and bravado gone. "Would you prefer I yell at you?"

Cort dropped her head. "Maybe."

"You didn't do anything to deserve it. _This_ time."

"I should have been able to do better." She trailed off, letting go of his healed arm and castigating herself to pat at the marble leg she was sitting on. "Bastards. They blew his head off."

Charon stood and climbed higher up the statue, reaching out and running his fingertips over the severed stump of neck to confirm the impression he had gotten previously, looking up at the figure before swinging her onto it. It was perfectly even, small grooves worked into the surface. "No, they didn't. Someone cut it off, pretty fucking carefully. And it wasn't downstairs, or out back. I would've noticed a big giant head, I'm not that thick." Dropping down, he settled himself, then pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her waist. "You'll find it. You'll agree to stick something up the ass of a Yao Guai for Moira in butt-fuck nowhere and fall over it on the way. Probably break your damned leg. Fucking make me carry it _and_ you back home." He smiled, feeling her ribs twitch, and reached down to fish around in a pocket on his cargos. "Now, as I was trying to damn well say, I found you something." He pulled out a Nuka Cola Quantum and dangled it in front of her, grinning wider at the fascinated look on her face, tinted blue from the glowing bottle. He had found it under a chunk of leg while looking for scattered shotgun shells, wiping it clean in his shirt before tucking it away for her. "Want it?"

"_Pretty_."

"I'll take that as a yes. Pretty fucking nasty in my opinion, but I know you're practically addicted to the regular shit. Go on, take it. Let's see what you're like buzzed out of your skull."

Cort took the bottle and wrenched the cap off herself, surprising him with the little display of strength. "Oh, you're gonna regret this."

"Probably." _But it's worth it._

_

* * *

_

**Charon **had idly considered retracting that sentiment, watching her following antics. The only thing keeping him from doing so was the fact that Cort had climbed back out of the funk she had slipped into. Twenty minutes after downing the strontium-laced soda, she had been zinging around like an electrified bloatfly, going for hours, babbling out historical facts and anecdotes so fast he could barely follow along(Charon now knew everything from what the Whig Party was to why she thought Andrew Johnson was a colossal raging dick). She had shut up long enough to eat, although from the way her free hand had thrummed against her leg, he knew it had taken an immense amount of effort. She finally crashed out towards dawn, the sky pinking up as she disjointedly rattled out information about Greek architectural features.

"So with Doric...Doric columns there's, uh. More masculine than the Ionic order...things...oooh Nelly, I think I want to go to bed now."

"I think you want to drop dead. Come on, we'll climb back up. You're not sleeping in that cesspit downstairs."

Charon steered her back towards the statue, hoisting her up and following, Cort immediately pillowing her head on his leg, falling asleep within moments. She was exhausted, and he didn't particularly like the idea of turning around and dragging her back into the Metro, deciding instead to stay on the marble figure, using it as a temporary eyrie. He could see anything approaching, and anyone entering the Memorial would have to adjust to the gloom inside, something he could turn into a fatal disadvantage on their part. With the mutt wandering around, he was positive there was no chance of anyone making it that far in the first place without him getting notice of it.

The sun was coming up, the rays slowly working their way into the Memorial, and he gently turned Cort to face away from the opening. He was half considering when he might manage to get sleep for himself, wondering if she would be averse to letting him nap, when the light suddenly slipped far enough to move over her head. Startled at what he saw, he jerked, waking her up and prompting her to let out a disgruntled bark.

"What the _hell_. I was _sleeping_."

"Sorry." Charon delicately brushed a finger over her scalp to confirm what he had seen. Her hair was turning white, tiny strands of new silvery growth starting to break up the black, and he pulled her closer as she burrowed into his lap, trying to nod off again. "Cort. How old are you." He had never asked, and the only comment she had ever made about it was in relation to the time spent outside the Vault. He knew she was a teenager, but that was the extent of it, further information not having seemed important before. It seemed very important now.

"Don't you know you're not supposed to ask a lady that? M'nineteen."

"Oh."

"Oh? What the heck is _that_ supp-" He scrabbled for something to distract her with, not wanting to answer any questions about why he had asked.

"When's your birthday."

"Oh. Uh, July thirteenth." She smiled. "It's the same day as Julius Caesar."

Charon knew about this topic, Rome having been in the same book about rabbits, and smiled back at her. "That's nice."

Cort yawned, her words starting to slur as she drifted off again. "You're nice. When did you get so nice, Charon?"

He suppressed another surprised twitch just in time. "A while ago. Go back to sleep." Waiting for her to start snoring again, he lifted his eyes back to the Mall, watching a pair of Mirelurks emerging into the water as he uneasily contemplated his employer's mortality. He wasn't particularly worried about anyone killing her, oddly enough. That was something he could take steps to prevent, that she could prevent, hell, that the fucking _dog _could prevent. There was no way to know if it was going to happen, although he grimly decided it never would as long as he had something to say about it. Time killing her, however, was something he couldn't prevent, no matter how much he wanted to, and it galled him bitterly. Eventually, Cort would finally age to the point where her body would break down and give out. He was already older than she could expect to live. Charon snorted. He had probably already been her age or older when her damned _parents_ had been born. He wasn't entirely sure how that made him feel, although he thought there was something sad about it. Even if he had remained human, if he had been capable of growing old with her, he would have died long before she left the Vault. _I wasn't made to grow old. Now I definitely won't._

He sat for a while, unthinking. The Mirelurks had managed to corner what looked like a pack of vicious dogs, or the dogs had been stupid enough to go after the giant crabs. There was a tiny splash as one of the mutts hit the water, and a tinier spread of crimson, looking almost brown in the green pool. Like always, things were dying everywhere around him. He supposed Cort was technically dying right now, albeit extremely slowly. Looking down again, he pushed her hair around, trying to hide the white strands behind the black ones, finding the sight of them unbearable. He buried his hand in it when he couldn't cover all of them up. It seemed like they were everywhere, and he thought he could feel them burning against his palm, taunting him.

For the first time, he wondered if it would have been better if he had never fallen in love with her, never had to consider things like this. He had spent his life _hoping_ for his employers to die, not wishing they wouldn't. Things then had been so much easier. He had been simpler. Frowning, he shook his head. _No, you were a broken down, messed up, repressed fuck. There was nothing simple about you then, and there's nothing simple about you now._ Cort shifted and he sighed, his ruined face clearing as he looked down at the small body he was cradling. _Things were definitely fucking easier, though. But not better. Shit. How could anything be better than this, even if it hurts. I'm better._ He rolled the concept over in his head, seeing it from a new angle. Before, he had only meant that he felt better, about himself and his state of being. Now, he was examining the possibility that he was a better person. The longer he was with her, the more he seemed to change. He could actually say he had _friends_ now, for fuck's sakes, Carol and(this was particularly demented, and he felt reality take a hard jog to the left again at the thought), some of the Brotherhood members. All because he had been dragged into the whirlwind of her life by some soft-hearted impulse. Because she was lonely. Charon felt his face working up again, thinking about that.

_What happens when I'm alone again_. _What will I be like when she-_ He violently shoved the unfinished thought out of his head. It wasn't going to happen. She had promised to stay, as long as he was alive. Forcing himself to believe the impossible oath she had made with stubborn, childlike conviction, he held her tighter, unconsciously starting to rock back and forth. _As long as I'm with her, it'll be fine. Fuck worrying about anything else. Nothing's going to take her awa-_ His mind ground to a halt as he felt Cort start to squirm harder, her breathing kicking up as a nightmare started kicking her awake. "Fuck. Right on time."

* * *

**Unable** to do anything else in the exposed location, Cort had listened as Charon murmured reassurances to her, countering whatever it was she had been sobbing about before slipping back under. Waking up now, she tried to decide if she felt worse now or then as she shook her head, slowly feeling clearer. It felt like she had slept with a knee jammed in her back all night. Looking around and realizing her location, she amended 'felt like' to 'had, on a humongous one'.

"Holy jeeze, did anyone get the number of that bus?"

Charon glanced down at her, looking tired and withdrawn. "What?"

"The one that hit me. What time is it?"

"I'm not the one who came pre-installed with a clock." She made a face and he grinned, thankfully banishing the somber expression. "It's around noon. I'd say twenty minutes before."

Lifting up her arm, she poked at her Pip-Boy, whistling when she found the time. "Wow, good guess."

He shrugged. "Not a guess. Training."

"Is there anything you can't do?"

Tugging on her hair, the same odd look passed over his face, gone again in an instant. "No."

"Cheeky. Come on, we'll head back to Underworld, and you can sleep in an actual bed. The way I feel right now, I'm not letting you conk out here." _Not with the way you look, either. We need to get back to Megaton so we can stop this tag-team sleeping bullshit._

Gathering up everything, they slowly made their way back down the Mall, Cort fighting a headache from the sunlight by the time they made it inside. Carol's reaction when Charon presented her with a few dozen pounds of Mirelurk meat made the pain entirely worth it. The friendly little woman had giggled like a schoolgirl, actually _giggled_, and then hugged _him_. She could tell the massive ghoul had had absolutely no idea how to handle it, standing stock still and shooting an alarmed look over to where she was slumped in a chair, caught in her own silent paroxysm of laughter. Of course, she had done absolutely nothing to help him out. She was still snickering as they made their way down the stairs, Charon looking like he was caught between being aggravated or mortified while hissing at her.

"Stop that! For fuck's sakes, you could have _done_ something."

"I was doing something, I was laughing my ass off. What, you wanted me to turn it into a group hug?" Grinning wider as he scowled, she looked around for Winthrop, not spotting the cheerful caretaker anywhere. _Huh. Probably stuck in a duct somewhere. Well, I can just go talk to Tulip first._ Popping into the woman's store, she was greeted with a sunny smile, and reciprocated with one of her own.

"Hey Cort! Clearing out again? You're gonna drive Quinn right out of business."

"Not likely, I don't make it in that much. I got some nice stuff though, more guns and parts, and some armour. He'll probably want to buy them off you to sell on later." Yanking things out of her pack, she swore as a shoulder guard from one of the slaver's suits caught up on her own clothing. Pulling harder, she yelped as she was suddenly assaulted by a deluge of flying holotapes and disks, some of them glancing off of Tulip, others scattering to the far corners of the store. Charon reached out and smartly caught two in rapid succession before they could fly over his shoulder and impact on the far wall. "Awww _shiiit_! Christ, I'm sorry Tulip, I was sloppy packing everything up earlier."

The red-haired ghoul darted around, piling the errant bits of plastic up on the counter as Cort dove after more. "Don't sweat it, you didn't take anything new off. Think you have enough of these things?"

"I find them all over the place. They're stored in my Pip-Boy, but I've never gotten back up to Megaton to leave the originals at home." Cort neatly started separating the little cartridges. She really _did_ have a whack of them, and pointed to each set as she organized the little collections. "This one's to someone called Little Moonbeam, whoever that is. I carry that one around in case I actually find them. This is about Mirelurk herders, I'm totally not shitting you. This is..." She had put together the largest pile. "These are all of my Dad." Staring at it blankly for a moment, she suddenly shoved all of James' recordings back into the bottom of her pack, wedging a shirt down on top of them before gesturing to the last little stack. "And these, these are pretty neat. These are all my android tapes. I'm hunting for one, can you believe that? A really-real android. He's changed his face and memories and-" Looking up to Tulip, the smile emerging on her face fading out. Tulip looked like she couldn't believe it. In point of fact, she currently looked like she was pretty damn horrified at just the thought of believing it.

"You're hunting for the android? For _who_?"

"Some creepy little bugger named Zimmer, not that I'm going t-" Cort blinked, the ghoul's last statement percolating through. "Wait, you _know_ about the android? Who is he? If you know, tell me, I have to warn him, I've been at this for freakin' months with no leads, just these darn tapes!"

If it was possible, the woman looked even more stricken at the mention of the elderly man's name. "Zimmer's here? The one from the Commonwealth?"

Cort glared at her, exasperated. "No, the one from Keokuk. Of _course_ the one from the Commonwealth! He's here with a bodyguard, weird, weird guy. Never says anything. Or breathes, possibly."

Tulip pressed her lips together, frowning. "It's probably another android. There's no way a smoothskin could handle one, they send their own after escapees."

"Huh. Well, that would explain why Dogmeat acted so fun..ny...around...him. Oh sweet merciful _crap_." Several little puzzle pieces clicked home in Cort's brain with a resounding snap. "Tulip, you gotta help me, help him. Zimmer's probably hired someone else by now, I haven't been going out of my way to help the little shit, I've just been collecting tapes and keeping them hidden. I probably wasn't even the first. I've got five of them, the tapes, but who knows how many others there are. It's pretty damn sloppy, if you ask me, I mean I had to ask some people for them, like Barrows and Winthrop and some crazy shopkeeper I know, but others were just lying discarded out in the open."

Tulip wrung her hands, her eyes darting around like she was looking for an escape route. "Cort, you don't get it, he doesn't want to be found."

Cort planted her hands on the counter, staring over the rims of her sunglasses. "You're not getting _me_. I know who he is, and Zimmer's been living right freaking next to him for _months_. Eventually, something's going to happen and the cat'll be out of the Goddamned bag."

"How the hell did you find out who he was? _He _doesn't know who he was!"

Turning, Cort pointed to Dogmeat, who whuffed and looked pleased with himself. "They might look human, but they don't smell that way. I'd bet if Zimmer and the others didn't have their heads jammed so far up their snobby elitist colons they'd remember that low tech works better sometimes. Dogmeat pegged them for what they were right away, just by being curious about the new smell."

Tulip looked distressed for a moment, fidgeted, and then dug around behind her counter. "Here. This will lead you to the smoothskin who performed the surgery. He's the only one who'll know what the android looks like right now, aside from you, and he'll know how to get him to remember."

"How the heck do you know so much? Everyone else just had bits and pieces of information."

"I'm a member of the Railroad. There's a network of us around the Wasteland and the Commonwealth, working to free androids from up north. Sometimes human slaves, too."

"Jesus, today's just turning into a theme day."

"What?"

"Nothing. Look, I'll take care of it, don't worry. Uh. So can I sell you some stuff now?" Shutting her eyes, Tulip carefully placed her forehead on her counter as Cort cocked an eyebrow and grinned.


	8. And Now For Someone Completely Different

_Yaay new readers! Thanks for the reviews here and on the first story, and alerts. Hearts to you guys who have been with me for ages too. ;) I know I said Tuesday was my go-to-it day but looks like I'm going to be spending that with my mechanic, so early update for you all. Enjoy!  
_

* * *

**Cort** was getting slightly worried. _Nobody_ had seen Winthrop, at least not that day, and she had started looking for him in earnest, wandering around for close to an hour with Dogmeat. She had finally harangued Charon into sleeping after finishing up with Tulip, promising to keep her pistol on her and convincing him that as long as she was able to see in Underworld, she was fine to roam around without him as her shadow. He hadn't looked convinced, but he _had_ looked unusually worn out, and she had firmly put her foot down when he gave her one too many objections. Now, she was working her way down from Carol's after checking to make sure he was still conked out. _He wanted me to wear the pants, fine, I'm wearing the pants._

Cort was idly listening at different access panels, trying to see if she heard the caretaker moving around(also idly wondering how much she could scare the crap out of him if she decided to howl down whatever shaft she found him in. During her first recuperation in Underworld he had made a crack about eating her skin off that to her chagrin, she had fallen for hook line and sinker, and she was _still_ looking for the perfect act of retribution). What she did hear was a somehow irate and slightly panicked staccato drifting from behind the upper concourse, too regular and complex to be random tapping from some loose fitting. Moving towards the wall and looking over her shoulder, she cocked an eyebrow at the coiffed ghoul in the corner, who was currently sucking back on an inhaler. Cort was well aware the hairdresser had a Jet problem, or was at least _trying _to with his ghoulish resistance, and once he had discovered she thought it was none of her beeswax as long as he didn't accidentally snip off what was left of her ears, didn't bother to hide it from her.

"Snowflake, how long has that being going on?"

He wheezed, plucking at his pyjama shirt pocket and dropping the inhaler into it. "Dunno, maybe an hour or two. The way the pipes and everything else goes whanging around up here, I kinda just block everything out. Probably more molerats."

Tilting her head, she rapped her knuckles on the marble floor in time to the tapping, muttering quietly to herself, swearing a moment later. "Ah jeeze. I don't think it's molerats, unless they're big, blue and really pissed off." Grimacing, Cort picked the lock and popped the panel open, looking over again before crawling in. "Can you keep Dogmeat company for a little while? I have to go spelunking." If anything got particularly hairy in there, she could at least count on the dog to come tearing in after her, and he was small enough to fit, but she wasn't sure how many straight climbs or drop-offs she was going to run into. Left with the hairdresser, he would presumably be well within earshot if she decided to kick up a fuss.

"Sure kid, whatever. I've got nothing else to do until you need another trim. You want a shave, pooch?" Cort shuffled back out long enough to give Dogmeat a reassuring look, which the dog looked like he suddenly, desperately needed, and the ghoul a hard one.

"Look, I'm going in here with a sheepdog. I don't need to come out and find a _poodle_. You wanna have a good time, go back to the party in your pocket."

"Hey, no promises."

Shooting another disapproving glare out as Snowflake waggled his eyebrows at her and grinned, she shuffled back into the ductwork, Winthrop's tapping now echoing loudly around her head. _At least I think it's Winthrop. Unless there's another person in here beating out an SOS along with 'get me out of here you fleshbags I'm stuck'._ Crawling forward, Cort flipped on her light and looked around. The airshafts were large enough for her to crawl through, for the most part, and terminally, disgustingly filthy, the only clean patches on the dusky metal made by the caretaker's previous trips into them. Following the smears, she tried to discern which were the most recent, along with attempting to follow the tapping. She gave up listening after about twenty minutes and resorted to feeling along with her fingertips, the echoes making it impossible to proceed by ear. There was also the fact that listening too hard was now starting to give her a case of the willies. There was a myriad amount of sounds in here, all overlapping in an ominous susurrus, one or more of them occasionally spiking louder as she moved through long passages and around corners. It was all too easy to imagine something waiting just around them. The light was even worse, strange glows coming from different corridors and her own light jerking around erratically as she crawled, reflecting uncomfortably bright off of the clear patches of metal. To top everything off, certain sections could go from feeling like she was baking to death to freezing her ass off, all dependent on where the air conditioning had been redirected.

"Christ, I hate this shit. I've _always_ hated this shit. At least the Vault ducts were filled with dust, not whatever this crap is...oh fucking gag me with a spoon, it _is_ crap. Ecky ecky eck!" Holding her fouled left hand out in front of her, Cort frantically smeared it against the edge of the next passageway, trying to get the molerat dung out of her Pip-Boy glove, gagging and yelling. "Winthrop! You fucking owe me _big_ time for this!" The tapping suddenly stopped, followed by an incredulous, rasping voice meandering out from somewhere.

"...Smoothskin?"

"No, _dirtyskin_." She yelled, frustrated. "Where the fuck _are_ you?"

He yelled back, puzzled. "Where the fuck are _you_?"

Cort's voice started out in a pleasant conversational tone and then spiked into the stratosphere, reverberating into the bowels of the ductwork. "Where the...oh I'm just calling from Tahiti, wanted to say hiii, wish you were heeere. Where the fuck do you _think I am_?"

His relieved voice drifted back to her, now sounding like it was originating from somewhere entirely different. "Oh thank God, you understood that old Morse shit, I didn't know if _anyone_ would. Yelling wouldn't work from this junct-"

"_Yes_, and now I'm smeared with old shit, so as much as I'm enjoying this tête-à-tête, do you think we can just hurry this along and _get out of here_?" Clenching her fists, she struggled to calm down, suddenly having a massive urge to shoot the hell out of every available surface, including the ones making up the ghoul. Cort shook herself, hard, feeling extremely distressed. _No, no. I like him. We don't shoot the ones we like, they're too valuable. I _keep_ them from getting shot_. "Sooo, what junction are you currently in? I just passed AC67. Apparently, you still have a minor rodent problem."

His voice ecohed hollowly to her from what now seemed like two places at once. "AC88, I was trying to get it running again, I got enough parts together after Quinn's last trip. Look, just keep going straight and then take your fifth right, second left, go down one level and then up three after the hole shaped like a mutfruit but before the one that looks like a vulture, right, four lefts, move sort of sideways and back down two levels, then I'll be right behind you. Uh, I think."

Cort pinched her nose, trying to parse the tangled directions, realized what she had just smeared onto her face, and then punched a massive dent in the wall.

"_Cort_? Are you okay?"

"Yup, fine, super! Coming!" Another forty minutes and untold strings of profanities later, she dropped in on Winthrop. Literally. Cort was irritated enough to not be entirely displeased at the fact that one of her elbows had nailed the man's solar plexus, and she fizzed darkly to herself until he stopped wheezing. Scattered around the cramped junction were piles of scrap and components, along with tools and a beat-up lantern. Untangling herself to take a closer look at the ghoul as his breathing settled out, her private schadenfreude departed immediately. "Holy Jesus, you _are_ stuck. How the sweet hell did you do that?"

"Tell me something I _don't _know. I was reaching in to patch some wiring over for power and I slipped, now my hand's wedged somewhere. You taking a swan dive on me didn't help, either. I'm not sure by what, I can't really feel it anymore." Tugging at the trapped limb, he winced. His arm was jammed inside a cutout section of ductwork, looking so painfully twisted she wondered how he hadn't managed to dislocate it. Looking at his matted, sweaty hair and wan face, she thought he had come close enough. Even crueler looking were the gashes in the side of it where he had hung up against the freshly cut metal, dribbled smears of blood on the corroded steel below. Cort realized she could even smell it, the section they were in being one of the uncomfortably hot ones. Noticing her snuffling in his direction, Winthrop pressed his lips together and stared bitterly at the low ceiling, snapping at her out of reflex. "Look, I know it's sweltering in here, and yes, I'm stinking up the joint. Just get me out of here and you can get away from it and me, okay? That work for your delicate sensibilities?"

Cort wondered if she looked as hurt as she felt. "Jeeze Winthrop, thanks so much for that. Maybe if I change my mind and actually decide to help you out of here you can ask Charon how he can stand screwing the uppity smoothskin, since you know, I must wear a gas mask or something to be able to get close enough to _fuck_ him." She sat down and tucked her knees in. "For your information I smell the exact same way, enough people have pointed it out for me to know."

Winthrop looked at her, feeling somewhat abashed and more than slightly shocked at her outburst, both the content and the language it was delivered in. Thinning his lips, he dropped his head for a moment. _Hell, be honest. You feel like you just stepped on the business end of a rake, hidden in a girl instead of the tall grass. Whammo, handle right in the kisser_. "Kiddo, I'm sorry. It just takes a lot to get used to you, and it's easy to forget you're different." He groaned internally. Now she looked upset _and_ depressed. "It's my fault, okay? I'm just stressed, and I'm sorry." For whatever reason, this second apology seemed to work, and her face cleared immediately.

"No, _not_ your fault. I'm sorry I snapped. This is just the one place where I don't feel like a giant freak."

He blinked, realizing she was being sincere this time instead of sarcastic. _And wham, there's the hoe, right next to that rake._ "Good on you then. You keep coming back, we'll keep taking you in. Still, be careful who you decide to snuffle at. We're ghouls, not little pansies." He cleared his throat and tried to look pathetic for her, not finding it the least bit difficult at the moment. "Well, I'll admit ah, _some_ of us might be both."

Cort smiled at the lousy joke, her mood lightening. "Yeah. _Anyway_, that's not what I was sniffing at, it's your blood..." She cut off, listening hard. Somewhere, someone was scrabbling along, either away or towards them. Duck-walking to the conduit she thought it was coming from, she yelled into the darkness. "_Hello_? Someone else gullible enough to climb in here after this blockhead?"

"Kid, I'm sitting right _here_."

Looking over her shoulder and grinning slightly at his uncharacteristically plaintive tone, she creeped to the far end of the little enclosure and concentrated. There was _definitely_ something moving around in there, around the corner. _Of course it's around the corner._ _Maybe Dogmeat got worried and came in after me. Oh crumbs, maybe Charon woke up and sent him in, he couldn't fit himself, Winthrop barely makes it through some of these sections_. "I'd say you're dangling."

Winthrop tilted his head back, clunking it against the wall with a hollow thud as she peered into the dark, shifting her light around. He sighed, wondering when the hell she would tune back into the fact that he was rather painfully trapped and she was supposed to be the one rectifying that for him. _Maybe if I jangle my keys. They're shiny, that should work on birdbrain here_. "I'm so thrilled it was you who came to my rescue, kiddo. I feel so blessed right now. How the hell did you end up finding me, anyway? I didn't think anyone would hear me."

"I missed you and when I couldn't find you right away, I got worried and started checking everywhere." Her expression moved from concerned to self-assured, shooting another glance at him as she brought up her Pip-Boy. _Something_ was in there, and she wanted to see if she could at least get a vague idea of where in the scrambled tunnels; the way the sound bounced, it could be four feet or four hundred away. "And you _should_ be thrilled, I'm very dashiEEK!" Suddenly, Cort was flat on her back, a molerat straddling her like a bizarre and naked lover, huge teeth gnashing through the air directly in front of her face as she tried to throttle it. She gagged and whipped her head around, finding the effluent coming out of the rat's front as wretched as what came out of their rears. "_Winthrooop_!"

"Shit!" The ghoul had his own problems, namely the two molerats that piled out after the one she was engaged with, the animal's incisors pushed dangerously close to her neck as they scrambled over the fighting pair. Boots scrabbling against the floor, he yanked on his trapped arm, kicking as the rodents hissed at him. "_Get me loose, GET ME LOOSE_!"

"_Get it off, GET IT OFF_!" Cort shrieked as her attacker's hind claws slashed into her legs, one set only missing her abdomen when it got caught up under her belt. "_OH GOD GET IT OFF BEFORE IT GUTS ME_!"

Stricken at the sight of the blood flying out of her, Winthrop was jolted out of his panic enough to remember his pistol, frantically slapping at his pockets to locate the 10mm as he jerked his legs out of the way. Bits of wire and scrap flew everywhere, joined by pencils, notepads and for whatever reason a decapitated Bobblehead, which he frantically threw into one of the gaping maws aiming for his anatomy before continuing his search, the molerat gagging on the little plastic body. "WherewherewherewhereHERE!" Finally pulling it loose, he screamed and piled slugs into his two assailants, blowing their heads apart, the Bobblehead flying back out in a cloud of gore-laden spittle, looking like a tiny and disastrous human cannonball. Swinging his arm around, he yelled again, the sound nearly turning into a howl as his trapped limb protested vehemently against the motion of its brother. "Push up Cort, PUSH UP!" Bellowing, she did, digging her fingers into the rat's chest and shoving as hard as she could. Winthrop took a deep breath and fired, hoping he wouldn't hit anything important as the animal chittered and tried to take advantage of its freed neck. The last of his bullets took off the top of the rodent's head just before it made a play to sever one of Cort's wrists, and it collapsed in an oozing pile on top of her. Groaning, he let his head fall back again, thumping it against the wall as he closed his eyes. "Oh crap. I think I'm gonna puke."

Hauling herself out from under the spasming corpse, Cort scrabbled over to him and pressed against his right side, panting and bleeding as she twisted her free hand into the fabric of his jumpsuit, clutching her silenced pistol in the left. She had hauled it free as soon as her hands were. "I don't like it in here. I don't see your fascination with in here. You should just let the air conditioning go and fix some fans instead. I bet you could all live with just fans. I've seen fans out there, I could get you lots of fans. Fans won't eat you."

Winthrop carefully took his finger off the trigger and shakily let his free arm drop around her. "Cort, stop saying fans. There aren't normally this many molerats in here, they must have chewed in from outside somewhere, trying to expand a burrow. It happens every so often, it's one the reasons I carry the pistol. I kill one every couple weeks, but this is the first time I've seen a group of the bastards in here." He sniffed, looking around. "Probably smelt the blood and came running, if you picked it up from that far away, the air conditioning's probably spread it all over." Freezing suddenly as he heard something aside from the girl's heaving, he glanced down at her. "How good a shot are you?"

"What? " Cort blinked, trying to think of a way to respond without tooting her own horn, irrationally caring about being modest. "Well, Charon says I'm really decent. Why?"

"Because I think there's more, and I'm out of bullets. If you _and_ them noticed me bleeding, they're definitely going to pick up on what's smeared around in here now."

"What? No, no more! I deny there being more!" She blanched, twisting her hand harder into the side of his jumpsuit. Molerats weren't normally such an issue, but then they normally didn't shred her like tissue paper. _Maan, I want my head exploding stick_.

Laughing wildly, he tried to keep from bolting up and attempting to tear himself loose. "Well move to fucking Egypt and _live_ in denial, but kill the fucking rats _first_!"

Cort groaned. "If go out on that horrendous joke I'm coming back to life just long enough to off your ass."

Letting out another strained bark, he patted her arm and tried to be reassuring, chalky eyes fixed and staring as he heard the scrabbling getting closer. "Please just save it first. I'm too old to die."

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she tried to ignore the way her legs were screaming and leveled her 10mm towards the opening the ugly rodents had emerged from. Two more molerats came barreling out, their dying squeals drowning out the soft _whup-whup-whup_ of the silenced pistol. Letting go of the ghoul, she creeped slightly forward. "Do you think that's it?"

"I don't fucking know, they didn't R.S.V.P. the invitations I mailed out for this shindig."

They waited silently for any more noise, any sign of movement, both of them trying to keep from breathing too hard. After ten minutes, Cort decided they were in the clear. "Well. They're shitty party guests anyway. Next time try Yao Guai. I could probably lure one in here for you." Pushing back against the wall, she shoved herself upwards, grunting at the effort.

"_Not_ funny, kid. Can we get out of here now? _Please_?"

"Grumpy. Here, you hold onto this while I dig you out." Handing him her pistol, he juggled both guns in one hand as Cort worked hers into the cramped space, cautiously moving her fingers down his wrist to find where he was caught up. He was snared on the edge of a support stud and a cable of wiring, the combination acting like a snare. Digging her nails into the snarl, she started tugging, swearing as her hands slipped around. She was intolerably sweaty, droplets running down out of her hair and into her eyes, taking the filth stuck to her head along with it, and it was making it even harder to concentrate on what she was trying to do. "Damn fucking right we're getting out of here. Charon's...Charon's got no idea where I am right now, and if he starts looking and can't find me...I don't know who'll be in worse trouble, me or you. He prob-probably wouldn't shoot me." Her head getting dizzy and her lungs feeling hot, her legs burning, she grinned weakly and redoubled her efforts, trying to get the entire affair over with. She didn't feel good, not good at all. "Stay still, huh? Everything's moving around."


	9. Fairytales, Aren't We All

_Mechanic dropped the ball, and I'm just feh! I'm a lot more than that, actually, but it doesn't bear repeating in polite company. Here's another chapter, since I enjoyed writing it so much. Thanks for the new reviews and favs, folks, at least something about today doesn't suck!_

_

* * *

_

**"Oh** Christ Cort, thanks, that's real reassuring. And I _am_ staying still. That's all I can do." As cranky as he sounded, Winthrop was glad it was the girl who had heard him banging away, and not only because she understood what it had meant. Odd duck that she was, she was at least competent and didn't have problems with small spaces, having helped him out before. _Although nowhere near this deep. We're way out in the boonies here_. _Crap, if she hadn't heard me banging away I would've ended up going feral and gnawing my damn arm off down here. And would anybody notice? Of course not. Not until something new broke and frigging inconvenienced them. _ Thankfully, she was also kind enough not to go crowing around Underworld that old Winthrop had gotten himself trussed up neater than a Thanksgiving turkey and needed her, the kid, to haul him out of his own damn ducts.

Resisting the urge to slump and hang himself even further, he settled for staring sullenly at the far side of the junction. _Hmph. Old. Like it matters that I was over sixty when I went down the irradiated crapper, I'm fucking close to three hundred now. But no, everyone focuses on the first number. Doesn't matter how long I've been rotting now, only how much I had gone off beforehand. Doesn't keep them from running to me for every little problem, though, or trotting me out like the good silverware or fancy tablecloth for when company comes over_. _'Look, there's a new smoothskin. Let's send Winthrop, _he'll_ see if they're psychotic, and then we can shove him back in the drawer'._ He rolled his eyes, admitting to himself that at least this particular gripe was uncharitable. He _liked_ greeting the people that came in, one, because it gave him a preview into what he could expect to be dealing with later if they stayed, and two, just because he was gregarious by nature.

He looked over as the tugging on his wrist increased, holding back an irritable snap as something constricted painfully. The kid had both her arms wedged into the hole, tongue stuck out and her eyes staring off into the middle distance as she concentrated. Going up to the kid had definitely paid off if today was any indication. She could be as irritating as a sugared-up toddler at times, but Cort was always willing to hang around with him, something he appreciated. Not that he would come out and say it or _ask_ her to spend time with him, he had some pride left(he wasn't sure if admitting that he liked hanging out with a teenaged girl just because she listened to him would kill the last shreds of it, but he wasn't about to take the risk). Also, unlike everyone else around Underworld, she didn't start a conversation by asking him for something; she didn't ask for anything _period_. Half the time she would dump her scrap and completely forget to come back for the supplies she traded it for; there was even a little pile of Stimpaks waiting next to his terminal right now, ready for him to grab up and chase after her with before she could leave. _Scatterbrain forgets the important shit and remembers me, just her all over._ "So you missed me?"

Swearing at her Pip-Boy snagging on the jagged metal, she responded in a tone that clearly implied she thought he was being dense. "Well _yeah_. You're usually around after a couple of hours, but this time you weren't. Nobody knew where you were, so I had to find you."

"They probably wouldn't notice I was gone until I didn't show up to mop the damn floor." Shaking his head, he rose his voice out of the angry mutter he had let it drop into and tried for grateful. "Thanks for coming in. You're probably the only one who would." Grateful didn't have a chance to make a dent in the girl as she slipped, the sides of her elbows slicing open on the jagged metal.

"FUCK! Thank _you_ so much for a lovely fucking afternoon. Charon's going to flip his shit if I let him catch me looking like this."

He wisely decided to say nothing, listening to her snarl and watching her face cramp up. Regardless of the foul mood she was in, the idea that she had come in purely out of concern for him improved _his_ mood slightly, although her second mention of the mercenary dampened things back a bit. After Carlo's header(and presumed death, since no one had seen him since) most people were half afraid to even _look _at her, and here she was now looking like some sections of her were made of shredded lunchmeat. He would have to make a point of staying as close to her as possible until _after_ the big bastard got a look at her, give the girl a chance to explain before anything untoward happened, specifically to _him_. He had had one hell of a conniption, finally finding out what the skinny ghoul had been doing to the kid while she was crippled, and an even _bigger_ fit when he had asked why nobody had told him, and felt angry all over again at the memory. _'We thought you knew, Winthrop'. Like _fuck_ I did. No wonder she battened on like a leech whenever she saw me. Smoothskin security blanket. _And then the kid, still addled from getting her bell royally rung by that little shit and pitiful as all hell, hands groping and reaching out for her two absent shadows as Carol tried to clean her off. Knowing she wouldn't care how horrible his own hand felt, he had reached out automatically for the closest one to stop her from flailing, asking why the hell she hadn't said anything and trying not to jump when her fingers suddenly laced into his, the grip disturbingly weak and intense at the same time. She had given him another in what was by now turning into a long line of mental wallops. _'I didn't want to put you out, Winthrop. Don't worry about it, okay?'_

He shook his head, remembering the surreal exchange. Bullied for weeks and looking like she had tried to pucker up to the business end of a burro, she had been more worried about shoving something extra onto his plate than the blood clogging up her face. There had been a tiny puddle of it held in her shot up ear, and for some reason he had fixated on that instead of her weeping forehead, a perfect little smear of ruby in a setting of damaged flesh. Touched and upset, he had opened his mouth to say...he hadn't known _what _he was going to say, what he _could've_ said, but then he had had to back out because Carol was mad at him -_him_!- for what had happened, agitatedly flipping a bloody rag at him when he tried to ask exactly how _that_ batshit accusation was supposed to fly. After that it had been dealing with the fallout of Charon's playing possum for fifty damn years, never mind that the poor damaged bastard hadn't had a choice in it. Somehow, that ended up as his fault too in the eyes of a few folks, and they had certainly let him know it, after finding out the kid hadn't sent the giant to take care of Carlo. _Skinny little asswipe. _I_ would've cleaned his fucking clock in an instant if anyone had thought to tell me about it. But no, it's only important enough to bother __me__ with if it's something bothering_ _them__ personally. Nevermind anyone else, or our guests being agitated. If she had decided to go off, or it had been someone else, someone _mean_ and crazy...fuck. Thank our lucky stars for crutches and a kind word._ He looked over again as Cort spat out some of her own, sounding like she was at least trying to be reassuring in the mess she was in.

"This is gonna hurt, but then you'll be fine, okay?" He could feel her fingers on his hand, just barely, flexing out against his restraints. "Ready?"

"It's not going to be any worse than it is, so go for it kid." Hissing as she suddenly yanked a bundle of wiring loose, he felt the stranglehold on his wrist loosen, the sudden rush of blood into his hand burning like a giant ant sting. Finally pulling his arm free, he let out a relieved sigh and flexed his fingers, trying to work out the surge of pins and needles setting his teeth on edge. "_Thank_ you."

"S'okay. It's way too hot in here. I don't feel good. Do you have any Stimpaks?"

"No, of course not, not on me anyway. Ghoul, remember? It'd be like pissing up a rope." Absently shoving both pistols into a pocket, he frowned and poked at his bloody arm. It sounded like she was moving off, and he needed to stay in here long enough to gather up his tools(AC88 could _stay_ broke for another few decades, as far as he was concerned, but he needed his tools for other jobs that couldn't be allowed to slide). The last thing he needed on top of everything else today was her getting distracted and wandering off. "It's not that bad anyway, just messy. Hey, don't go anywhere, I need you to-"

"Oh, right. Nuts. " Alarmed at how distant she sounded, Winthrop jerked his head up in time to see Cort hit the deck in a dead faint. His remaining skin went dead white, watching her sprawl out like a rag doll.

"Oh, _shit_! Cort? Come on, don't do that to me again, once was enough, okay kid?" Leaning over her, he patted at her slack face, pulling back almost immediately. One of his knees had pressed into her thigh, and it was now absolutely saturated, the cloth of his jumpsuit sticking against him. "Oh _shiit_. Charon's going to blow my head clean off for this." Groaning, Winthrop shut his eyes, rapidly spinning through his mental maps of the ductwork he had spent almost two centuries crawling around in, frantically searching for the quickest route out. _ No, not that one. Climbs straight up for twenty feet. She's light and you're strong, but you're not _that_ strong. Not that one either, comes out where there's ferals. Can't walk through them with her._ He snapped his eyes open._ Wait. I rerouted AB40. There's a hole in the shaft, a big one, I never bothered to fix it since Ahzrukhal wasn't around to bitch about the airflow cutting off anymore. Or anything else. Oh fuck, I'm going to end up pasted on the dang ceiling._

Committed to a route and finding his courage in making the decision, he carefully wrapped his arms around Cort and started dragging her backwards through the ducts, moving as fast as he could. He had to stop every few hundred feet to shake the filth loose from her legs and rear, vainly trying to keep it out of the oozing gashes in the front of her thighs, and he had frothed himself into an almost irrational state after half an hour of fruitless effort.

"I never had time to clean these fucking things out, why didn't I find time? All I _have_ is time, time and everyone else's bitching. Fix this, Winthrop. This isn't working, Winthrop. Why don't I have a wall anymore, Winthrop. My ceiling's on fire, Winthrop. Why is my smoothskin girl _dead_, Winthrop."

"Winthrop. Stop saying Winthrop." Cort groaned. "Oh God, that's gone and done it. Your name's lost all meaning now."

_Oh thank crap_. He narrowly kept himself from whooping as she let out another low moan. "My name will be mud if I don't get you out of here. What kind of rescue is this, anyway? You're supposed to be hauling me out."

"Yeah, well, I decided to let you proceed me. Ladies first and all that."

"I can still leave you in here, you know."

"There's gratitude for you. Come on and let go then, I'm pretty sure I can crawl."

"You sure?" She pushed up, and he tried to ignore the dangling shreds on the front of her cargos as he helped her roll over onto her knees. _Oh fuck, please let all of that be cloth._

"Yeah. I'm too woozy to be pissed off and you've got my gun, so everything's fine right now."

He patted her side, relieved. "Kid, that makes no sense, but as long as your legs are working, we can give your brains a pass. Come on." Letting go, he started moving down the ducts, stopping when he didn't hear her behind him. "Cort?"

"I'm _tired_, alright?"

Winthrop looked back, alarmed at how caustic and angry she suddenly sounded. The kid was leaning against the side of the duct where he had left her, her eyes so flat and unfocused it was almost frightening. To him she looked far from fine. What she looked like was half past drooping, going on dead. He bumped his estimation up to quarter to when she shut her eyes and slumped even lower. "You can't sleep right now, you're saving me, remember? No time to be lazy. That's the problem with you damn kids today, you never finish anything."

"Old fart." Seeing her mouth twitch, he decided to keep ribbing her.

"Yeah yeah, get off my lawn." Moving in reverse until he reached her, he looped his injured arm over her back and started gently nudging her along, balancing on the good one as she started forward, drunkenly tottering around on all fours. "Come on kiddo, keep talking, I know how much you love to hear yourself. Tell a story, ask me a question, anything."

"Oh, uh, okay. Why are you blue?"

_Christ, half dead and she still cuts in like a frigging laser. The queen of tact, this one_. "Because that's what I'm wearing."

"No I mean why are _you_-"

"I know what you meant, and I meant what I said. Spend a couple hundred years wearing shitty blue jumpsuits made with cheap dye, and well." He shrugged as much as he was capable of with one arm snugged around her, his other casting about for balance. "Blue. I know, just one more cosmic kick in the shins, right? I get to spend eternity as a rotting blueberry."

"I think it's pretty." Cort plucked at her shredded shirt, nearly keeling over when she lifted her hand up. "At least you don't look like a dead _fish_belly. Not a whole lot of sun underground."

"At least you don't look dead. Well, at least you don't look _completely_ dead." Winthrop winced before the last words were even entirely out of his mouth, seeing the side of her face screw up. "Sorry, kid. You don't look that bad, really." He winced again hearing her voice break when she responded.

"Well I feel horrendous."

_Ah shit. Come on you old coot, make her feel better_. "We're almost there. Come on angelface, keep yakking, I need the company. Don't leave me alone here, Cort." Apparently something he had said had been the magic words again, because her face cleared into a thoughtful expression. He supposed it might've been the compliment, women of any age tending to like them in his experience, and tried to think of more before he was cut off by another fantastically uncomfortable question.

"You're as old as Carol is. Did you always work in the Museum?"

Winthrop let out a cynical and short bark of laughter. "Technically I'm older. And no kiddo, I moved in here from down the coast after the war, once...ah." He paused, his eyes looking hazy and wistful for a brief moment before resuming their slog. "I was an aerospace engineer before the bombs dropped, not a glorified janitor. I worked for the USSA, believe it or not."

"Oooh, keen _gear_. That's so awesome!"

He smiled slightly, hearing the childlike enthusiasm coming out of her, anything sounding better than the weary listlessness. She always sounded like that when she was excited, and it always reminded him of someone he used to know, which made him vaguely, blissfully happy while driving him absolutely nuts at the same time, whoever it was perpetually on the tip of his tongue as she babbled on. "It was, for a little while. I was around for the last manned mission for the moon, fresh out of university, stars in my eyes, all that shit. But the military already had control of the program by then, and the focus went from exploration to 'buttressing the defenses of our great nation' right smart soon afterward. Doublespeak bullshit for stuffing the Delta IX rockets with warheads instead of astronauts, basically. I spent twenty-five years at that job watching everything go to hell before it all burned." _Spent two or three wandering up the coast afterward until I did, but why pile shit on manure. She doesn't need to hear that_. "All of us there knew it was going to, whether we admitted it to each other or not, although I don't know if any of us expected the final result. Nobody fessed up to knowing that at _all_, unless it was just to ourselves." He sighed, trying to remember which side of that ancient fence he had been on and failing, then wondered if Cort was feeling any of the futility, the hopelessness they had then over losing Project Purity now. If she was, he wasn't going to bring it to the forefront like she had inadvertently done for him. "Pick something else to talk about, Cort."

"What was it like getting to choose what you wanted to be when you grew up? I bet it was nice."

He blinked, surprised before he remembered she had grown up in a Vault, then puzzled. "You don't choose for yourself in those tin cans?"

"No. We weren't allowed to. You had to take this really shitty aptitude exam, and depending on your score, that's what decided your job for the rest of your life."

"Well, what did you get? Official pain in the ass?"

Her mouth twitched, and he wasn't sure if it was from being happy or sad. "Vault Chaplain. You know, a minister. I don't know how good I would have been at that, but then I suppose it would've gone along with being the doctor too. I would have been that, eventually, if...if a lot of things hadn't happened. Now I'm...I don't know what I am. I don't think I'm anything. Did you always want to be an engineer?"

He felt his own mouth twitch back. "No. For a while when I was five, I wanted to be a bathtub."

"_What_? How the heck did you figure that was-"

"I was five, kid. I also thought planting bread and a jar of jam would result in a sandwich tree." She seemed to think that over for a moment, and then started rattling off words like a chirpy little assault rifle.

"What were trees like? Live ones, I mean. Did you ever plant a real one? What kind? What were evergreens like, what was the scent like, and did deciduous ones ever smell the same? Did you ever go to an orchard, and pick things? Apples?"

Winthrop decided he was getting entirely too uncomfortable with the questions she was bombarding him with, nevermind that he had been the one who asked her to start posing them. Everything was leading excruciatingly back into a place he didn't want to go, even for a visit. He would answer these ones and then beg off as being too damned old and tired to talk anymore, and yes he _had_ gone to an orchard, not long before everything went to shit he had driven his sister and her little boy to-

He stopped dead in his tracks, mindless of the situation they were still in._ Oh sweet Christ. That's it. That's who. My nephew._

He hadn't thought of the boy in more than a century, willingly forgetting anything to do with his family, the memories hurting too much. His father had been killed in action up in Anchorage not long after he was born, and Winthrop had tried to fill the gap as much as possible, spending the tiny amount of free time work allowed him with the boy. He had looked nothing like Cort, had been absolutely nothing like her at _all_, but the silly rapidfire questions, the pure and simple _joy_ at getting answers and having someone to give all of them, no matter how many were wanted, were the exact same. Feeling time, _his_ time, slip in his head, he was struck with an irrational and heartsick urge to read to her. The boy had always liked that, downright _loved it_, fairytales his favourite. Not the namby-pamby modern versions but the original ones from a book he had had as a kid, real blood-and-guts stuff. The wolf tricking Little Red Riding Hood into eating part of her dead grandmother, the prince in Rapunzel getting his eyes gouged out, the evil queen in Snow White dancing to death in red-hot iron slippers. He had only gotten to hear them when Winthrop managed to visit, the man and the boy not willing to risk his sister noticing what he was filling her kid's head with. If he had ever left the book where she could open it, he mused, he wouldn't have had any ears left to lose when he ghoulified.

Suddenly, catastrophically weary, he closed his eyes, thinking about the storybook, about everything burning away and the girl leaning on him, the sets of memories all blending together. _Now I'm living in a fucked up version of them, of that book. Monsters, death and radiation in lieu of evil spells. I've even got a damsel in distress. But what's going to happen to you, princess? Not all of those stories were happily ever after. Not by a long shot. _He bit back a sob, thinking of the burnt shell of a house and then a school he had driven all night to find, giving up and running through the countryside for the last stretch of it when the roads had gotten too dangerous, clogged with crazed refugees and their corpses. _Fuck, it sure as shit didn't end happy for my poor-_

"Winthrop?"

She sounded panicky, sounded _scared_, and he forced his eyes open as she suddenly clung to him, forced himself to gently shrug her loose and start moving again, reminding himself that this was a kid he could actually do something about saving. Clearing his throat, he gave thanks for small miracles as his voice came out calmly. "Oranges. It was oranges. The blossoms really do smell just like the fruit, if you were wondering." He fell quiet, and his face must have been doing something this time, something damned impressive, because so did she, not chasing after her unanswered queries. She was staring at him, staring hard with a queer sort of thoughtfulness on her face, but he ignored it, not wanting to go off on another bizarre and painful tangent by asking what she thought was doing, looking at him like a bug in a jar. Lost in his own thoughts and feeling useless for so many different reasons he couldn't identify half of them, he nearly faceplanted when she blurted out another of her completely random and utterly distracting statements, bumping him out of his melancholia with a jolt.

"It's nice that you're still important. It's not astronauts, but I suppose it's still pretty darned notable."

Pushing himself back up, he kept hitching forward with her. Some day, if it were possible, he wanted to know exactly how the kid managed to live in left field on a perpetual basis. "_What_?"

"Well, you're in charge here, whole little city. Everything would fall apart without you whacking at it like Don freaking Quixote."

He resisted the urge to slap a hand over his face. "Kid, Quixote never actually defeated the damn windmills. That's not exactly an encouragement."

She shrugged, her back tensing up under his arm. "So get yourself a Sancho Panza. It's not like half the people here are even doing anything half the time." She grimaced. "You could organize a whole crew every once in a while and maybe _clean_ these stupid ducts, it's what we did in the Vault. Once a year was enough, since everybody had to help and anyone half-assing their part meant everyone going in again. They do the shit work, and you can do all the stuff you need to. Or want to."

He thought about the concept. It wasn't a bad one, if it would work. He reminded himself that it was a long shot, a _very_ long shot, and he sounded peevish when he answered. "Maybe."

She was quiet for a few moments, the only sounds the slump and drag she was making and his broader shoulders brushing against the side of the duct. "Maybe if I brought you a Red Racer suit you could go purple."

Shaking his head, he barked out something between a snort and a laugh. "Oh yeah, that'd be just spectacular, top notch. Winthrop the degrading _grape_." Pulling around the corner and spotting a thin rectangle of light at the far end of the section they were in, he heaved out a relieved breath, feeling almost entirely out of them by this point. "How are you doing, anyway?"

"I'm hamburger with feet. Are we there yet?"

"Not quite."

"How about now?" she chirped, sounding like she was trying for innocent and hitting facetious instead.

"No." He shot a dirty look at her. "Don't make me pull over."

Cort rolled her eyes and went a few feet without saying anything before kicking into a tone so perfectly, obnoxiously _whiny_ it was a veritable work of petulant art. "So are we there _now_? How much _loongeeer_."

"Young lady so help me, I will turn this shitshow _around_, and-and-" He couldn't go on any further, just couldn't, and he broke down and laughed until his sides positively _ached_ with it, Cort giggling weakly and wincing as she hugged him, and oh God that felt good. Hugs were _good_. It took part of the weight he had forgotten he was carrying off, and he felt such a sense of relief it was almost painful. "You...you _little_-"

"Brat? Pest? Whippersnapper? Irresistible scourge?"

Shaking his head, he wiped at his eyes and pushed back up, helping her do the same. "All of the above. Come on, we're almost out of here." They kept moving, Withrop pulling even harder on her. She had perked up for a while, but now she was obviously starting to flag, and he was more than ready to drop himself when they finally made it to the end. "Okay, I just need to pop off that panel and we're home free." Not giving a shit about breaking the latch at this point, he shot out a leg and kicked the grate open, then gave one final massive yank on Cort's sides and slithered out of the wall, her slumping out on top of him as the metal door crashed against it. They had surfaced in the back room of Carol's, and he was looking around for the woman, knowing he could get instant help out of her for Cort when the bed next to him positively _exploded_ with movement, the occupant erupting up out of it and crashing a pair of very large boots onto the floor. Winthrop tried to keep a brick from crashing into his shorts, staring up at who it was. Charon was towering over them like a fleshy, deteriorating, consummately _pissed _skyscraper, and he reflexively tightened his arms, simultaneously horrified and very, very grateful that Cort was spread over him like a protective blanket. "Aah fuck."

"What the f-Cort? _Cort_? Winthrop you fucking, brain-eating pile of _shit_, what the hell did you do to _my GIRL_?"

The kid rolled around, thankfully keeping herself directly between him and her enraged bull of a boyfriend as she snapped back at him. "Charon, stop being an asshole and pick me up. I got mauled by a molerat and Winthrop blew it away, so saying _sorry_ and _thank you_ right now would be the nice and appropriate response. Thank you, Winthrop."

Letting go as the massive ghoul reached down and plucked her off of him, Winthrop stayed entirely still after moving his arms away, not daring to twitch more than his eyeballs. "Don't mention it. I'd still be stuck or dead if you hadn't crawled in after me." He froze even those when Charon fixed his own on him while slipping an arm under Cort's knees, hoisting her against his broad chest and completely ignoring the filth transferring onto it from her.

"Don't count dead out of your future fucking plans just _yet_, you-"

"_Charon_!" Instantly the big mercenary snapped to attention, his full focus suddenly on the kid who was now acting amazingly perky, eyes bright and looking like she'd just taken a brief constitutional instead of the slog they had just gone through, the wretched state of her notwithstanding. Cort started brushing the side of the man's face with the back of her right hand, one of the only clean patches left on her, her voice dropping from brutally harsh to soothing. "Now stop it. You're just pissed because Barrows is going to snipe at you again."

"_Something's_ going to get sniped."

Cort rolled her head back to look down at him. "You had to pick _here_ to come back out?"

Winthrop flicked his eyes over to hers and kept them there, finding them infinitely better and much less likely to scare him into a fit of incontinence. "It was the fastest."

Charon snarled, reclaiming her attention. "You're never hanging around with this fucking asshole ag-"

Winthrop abruptly shoved up on his elbows_. Oh, that's it. That's just it, I've had enough of the insults and everything else._ "HEY!" Both heads turned back to face him as he bellowed, wearing such identical expressions of astonishment he had to bite back another fit of laughter as he focused back on Charon. "Look, you overgrown meatsack, I run this place, and if you're coming back in you'll damn well mind your fucking manners while you're here. Tell me that I haven't given you that courtesy when dealing with you, you and all that shit of yours I had to clean up over the years, and you'll be lying right through what's left of that ugly mug of yours. I don't care if it wasn't your fault and I don't give two shits if you're comfortable or not, but I'm not going to take crap off of you or anyone else in this joint again." He sighed, feeling liberated, in his opinion something so new and rare and plain old _fantastic_ it was entirely worth getting shot up for. "The kiddo gets to do whatever she wants while she's here, short of burning the place down, so stuff it."

Charon opened his mouth, closed it, then looked back to Cort with a massive scowl, who shrugged at him and unsurprisingly said something completely nonsensical. "Pants." The merc said nothing back, only sighed heavily and kissed the kid's right collarbone before spinning around, taking her rapidly out of Carol's and presumably down to the clinic. Carol herself replaced his position in front of the caretaker a second later, madder than a wet hen.

"Winthrop, what-what-" She struggled, trying to come up with whatever she was most outraged with, settling on what he figured was the simplest for her, under the circumstances. "What's that all over _my floor_!"

"Carol, don't get your garters in a knot. I'll send someone up to mop it once I get cleaned off and take care of something I need to get out of the way first. Okay? Okay."

Winthrop rested his head on the cold marble tile and smiled as she threw up her hands and hustled off, suddenly feeling slightly younger than his sixty-something-plus-two-hundred years. All in all, it had turned out to be an enlightening day. There were parts he could have done without, were there _ever_, but he supposed the good stuff balanced out the bad, at least in this case. Once he got all the crap off of himself, he was going to have a little meeting with the residents and lay out just how things were going to work with them chipping in, let everyone know just how important he really was and how far up shit creek they would be without him before he went back to retrieve his tools. Winthrop put his hands behind his head and crossed his legs, chuckling and not caring if he looked crazy doing it, just relaxing on the floor and enjoying not having to do anything for the moment. _I wonder when she'll be back again. I still need to tell her what pine trees smelled like._


	10. I Should've Come With a Manual

_Thanks for the reviews and favs! Glad you guys enjoyed the previous chapter, it was awesome fun to write._

* * *

**This** time Barrows said nothing, just gave an exaggerated, long-suffering sigh, pulled out a folding screen and flapped a hand at Graves, who rolled her eyes and went to fill up a bucket at the clinic's sink. Both ghouls spent close to an hour getting the grunge out of Cort's flesh before they were able to wash it down with irradiated water, interspersed with the application of a blood pack, a bag of Rad-Away, and several refills of the bucket so she could clean herself. Charon leaned against the far wall and perpetually glowered until Cort reemerged, wearing nothing but her sunglasses and a bedsheet, her pistol's holster and boots slung over one shoulder. Chirping a thanks back at Barrows and Graves, she trotted out the door in her makeshift toga with a blissful smile, the big ghoul lumbering crankily beside her.

"Cleeeean I like clean. Clean is awesome. You ready to head out, or did you need to sleep more?"

Charon shook his head and resisted the urge to grip his temples. "I'm not the one who just got shredded. What the fuck were you thinking, crawling in there? _Were _you thinking?"

"I was thinking I needed to, and that he would have done the exact same for me. He was trapped in there, and if I hadn't gone in, he would have been toast." Bouncing up to the stairs, she saw Winthrop involved in a heated discussion with a small group of ghouls and waved, getting a distracted one back and then a hard look once he noticed what she was wearing. Giving his head an amused shake, he went back to whatever it was they were hashing out. "It would have taken ages for anybody else to go in, and I was there right then, so in I went." Letting out a loud whistle, she grinned wider when Dogmeat appeared an instant later, running up with thankfully all of his fur intact. "Thanks Snowflake!"

"No problems kid!"

Charon irritatedly glanced towards the far end of the balcony where the disembodied voice of the white-haired ghoul had drifted out from, annoyed that she had bothered to inform someone other than him of what she had been up to, the one person whose duty it was to prevent shit like this from happening in the first place. "It was foolish and reckless. How am I supposed to...why the fuck didn't you come get _me_ to haul that shi..._him_ out?" He rolled his eyes, belatedly refraining from using a colourful way to refer to the caretaker. The man having the guts to yell at him and the fact that it had been truthful had garnered enough respect up for him to keep from slagging the other ghoul. It was difficult, considering that he was more than a little infuriated that the older man had been the one to safeguard his employer, putting him in a position to be grateful that he did not want to be in. Tipping the scales into civility was the dirty look Cort shot him when he nearly let slip with another profanity directed at Winthrop, which so far, had only increased. "Why didn't you at least take the damn _dog_?"

She snapped back at him. "Because I was worried about him getting stuck, and I was right with all the fucking climbing around I had to do in there." Swinging into Carol's, she gave both her and Greta a distracted wave, the latter woman grabbing up a pack of smokes and slipping out immediately. "Look, if I want to go help my friend, I'm _gonna_ go help my friend. I don't need your approval." Coming up to their belongings, she started yanking spare clothing out of her pack, scattering small bits of wire and oddments over the floor. At some point Winthrop had tucked her pistol and a wad of Stimpaks into her pack, and she yelped, catching the little bundle before it could impact on the floor. _Cripes, there's a lottery for you. Stimpak or a slug in the foot._

"I do _not_ like you venturing into an unstable area unattended."

Hearing him suddenly slip into his formal tone, she brought her temper up short and turned to take a good look at him, already having an excellent idea of what she would see. _Yup, standing straight as an arrow. Ah, balls._ Cort sighed and inclined her head towards him, the big ghoul only hesitating for a second before reaching out to tug at her damp hair, his posture slowly relaxing as he pulled at it. "They're not usually 'unstable'. I've been in the ducts before, and I didn't know it was going to turn into such a clusterfuck. I'm sorry I upset you." Her mouth quirked ruefully. "Besides, you wouldn't have been able to fit in there anyway."

Unwrapping the sheet from herself and holding it up and apart, Charon took it from her and stretched his arms out, making a drape for her to hide behind, and his expression softened as he looked down at her. She was perfectly, spotlessly clean and there were clear signs her flesh was filling out again, moving from what had been brushing up against emaciation and starting to head back towards her normal rounded set of curves. "I fit in you just fine."

Cort smiled, pulling on spare clothing and following it with her armour. _That's better. Happy Charon is happy me._ "Naughty. Okay, let's see. We need to go to Rivet City now and track down this Pinkerton guy Harkness talked about on the tape." Thinking about going back to the carrier, she curled up her lip in distaste. "We'll have to stay at that ratbag hotel again, I do _not_ feel like bunking in a Metro room. I still have kinks on top of kinks from sleeping in the Memorial. Besides, it's been a while since we've had a bed together. Come to think of it, I don't think we've ever actually had, ah." _Lots of floors, several desks, a pile of sandbags and oh God._ Blushing madly, Cort dropped down to tug on her boots as Charon finally dropped the sheet, moving to strap on his own armour and then Dogmeat's after changing his shirt, distastefully wadding up the fouled one.

After gathering the last of their things and saying their goodbyes, Carol loading Cort down with another packet of letters, the trio headed back out again into the early night, descending into the Museum Metro and making their way to Rivet City by way of Anacostia Crossing. Moving through the tunnels leading towards the carrier, Charon was turning over their next objective in his head, uneasily circling his thoughts around what Cort was going to attempt to do. "Are you sure you want to make Harkness remember? He seemed pretty fucking set on flushing his past out permanently, if that recording was any indication."

"Yes. Eventually something will happen and someone somewhere will end up finding out he's an android. If he doesn't know he is, how the hell is he going to know how to protect himself? What if he needs surgery or something, there's no way that he looks human on the inside." Cort kicked a chunk of rubble, watching it bounce down the tunnel and into the darkness. "Wouldn't you want to know who you were?"

He grimaced. _I know who I am, that's the fucking problem_. "I've managed to accumulate quite a lot of things I wouldn't mind forgetting, Cort. Fuck, haven't you?"

"You know that I have, but they're mine, they're my memories, and I wouldn't be who I am now without them." Her face screwed up into a distressed confusion, her hands clenching into fists around the barrel of her repeater as she faltered. "I-I need to know who I am so I can be who I was, it's _important_." Dragging in a ragged breath, she forced herself to relax, noticing the ghoul looking at her with the shrewd, searching concern that she was seeing on his face way too often. "He can always go back to this Pinkerton fellow and get his memories wiped again, or something. I can't just leave things like they are."

"Well, let's go fucking fix him then. Come on, we'll get back to that shitpile and you into bed. You've had too long a day again, huh?" Reaching out, he hugged her to him, walking with one arm around her and balancing his shotgun over his shoulder with the other. Cort said nothing, only stared blankly ahead while she kept moving, and he tried a different tack. "How the fuck did you manage to let a _molerat_ get the drop on you?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Charon shook his head, wanting to keep her from sliding back into herself.

"You play storyteller for that damned bartender, you can do it for me. Spit it out!" A pause. "Please? It must have been impressive to get you like that, what was it, ten feet tall and farting napalm?" Cort snorted out a giggle and he grinned. _Gotcha_.

"No, it was a fucking _normal_ one. It's really really hard to hear where things are coming from in there, it echoes like crazy and Winthrop's rearranged so many routes in there it's well, it's a rat's nest."

He listened attentively as she quietly laid out what her afternoon had been comprised of, absently filing any tactical information away for future use, the odd data joining the massive collection he kept in the back of his mind. He grimaced as she came to the parts about the rat being blown off of her, her fainting and the caretaker hauling her out and goading her on, reminded again that he was in debt to the other ghoul. _I'll have to apologize. At least a little. Later, where nobody can see me fucking doing it._

"That's the second time I've done that to him, any more and I'll give him some kind of paranoid complex. Did you know how old he is? I think he's almost three hundred, like, at least twelve or fourteen times older than I am!" She looked up at him, wonderingly. "That's so freaking _cool_. I'm like a flash in the pan compared to that."

"There will not _be_ any more, and no, I did not." Now it was his turn to feel withdrawn, looking at his patchy arm draped over her armoured shoulders. "We're almost back outside, anything showing up on that piece of shit?"

Lifting up her Pip-Boy, she nudged off the cover and rapidly flipped through the screens. "Uhm, hm. Oh crap."

"Oh _great_. How many?"

"Five, all close together. Talons?"

"Who else is that sloppy. Even raiders know to spread out when they're trying to scrag someone." Bringing his shotgun down and drawing out a handful of grenades, he nudged the gate to the surface open. "Come on, let's get this shit over with."

* * *

**Cort** let out a long and exasperated sigh, walking down towards the carrier and staggering under the weight of arms and armour they had stripped from the party of mercs. There was blood running down her neck, and she was fairly positive that it wasn't hers, which was making her mood possibly even more foul than it already was. "I am getting really, _really_ tired of having people personally out to get me. At some point, this foolishness is going to have to stop."

Charon shrugged. "Well it's stopped for those idiots."

"I mean it. I'm tired of having these bastards on my tail." _And I'm really, really tired of being called a corpse-fucker, it's gotten old. It's reached the fucking Precambrian by now. Can't they slander me with something new_? Looking down at the skeletal ramp balancing on the edge of the river, she suddenly smiled, the sight of a vague two-headed lump at the base banishing her sour temper instantly. "Look! There's a merchant in. Maybe I'll get lucky and it'll be Crow, that would be _so_ nice. I haven't seen him in _ages_."

The ghoul grunted noncommittally and shifted his share of the load higher, scowling down at the shape partially illuminated by the flaming barrel that was perpetually burning at the entrance to the carrier. He was of the firm opinion that no, it was _not_ nice, and would be quite more than happy to plow through another dustup with more Talon Company than sit through another few hours of her socializing with the annoying merchant, unsettled by the prospect and even more unsettled that it was bothering him. Personal feelings were riding up against his contract again, and he was reluctant to ask Cort to clarify the new annoyance for him, the sensation entirely too new for him to specifically quantify yet. Whatever this feeling was, he wasn't sure if he liked it or not; either way, it was making him want to punch the shit out of someone. _If they touch each other again, I'll do more than punch him. I'll rip his fucking head clean off._ He blinked, surprised with himself and feeling even more uneasy because of it. He had just gone through a discussion over her deciding her own actions and gotten his words pushed back at him after her escapade in the ducts, and here he was pushing the envelope again. _She's your employer. She can do that if she wants, it's her decision to make, it's always her decision. _Picturing the last time she had encountered Crow, he went from furious to something that felt suspiciously close to quailing. _What...what the fuck do I do if she _lets_ him again? She liked it, I _know_ she did. She looked like she does when _I _do-_

"Ah damnit, it's not him. Well, we can still sell off a bunch of this extra crap, and maybe whoever it is'll have stuff we need. Hey, maybe they'll know where he is! Then we can figure out where to meet up later if he's on this side of the loop, that'd be aces." Cort grinned down at Dogmeat trotting beside her, completely oblivious to how nauseated the ghoul looked behind her and entirely clueless to what she was doing to him. "Isn't that right, baby." Getting a whuff back, she laughed and absently spun her bracelet, happily fiddling with the smooth metal. "Don't I _ever_ have a lot to share with him." She tried to put on a brave face as Charon started trying to mask his, trailing farther behind her. _The good things. If I only share the good things, maybe the bad ones won't be so bad._

_

* * *

_

**Like** so many other things that it was taken for granted he would know like any other person, jealously was something that Charon had no sweet clue how to process. From an intimacy standpoint, his emotional maturity extended only so far as Cort was capable of teaching him(which, unfortunately, she only did when she tuned in to the fact that she _needed_ to do it, which to date had only happened after something went spectacularly haywire). He had made leaps on his own once he had her behaviour as a benchmark to mold his own on and correlate other's actions to, such as figuring out that he wanted her, but anything complex that she hadn't explained started off feeling like a hopeless snarl that made his head ache, partly because of his training and partly because he _hated_ being at a disadvantage in regards to anything. Nearing a century in age or not, when it came to things like this, Charon was as screwed up and clueless as a teenager; in some ways a ludicrously sheltered one. Simply put, it was not unlike the stunned leading the blind.

Giving the merchant a nod as Cort flapped a hand back in his direction(this one a balding, bearded man dressed in a surprisingly tidy set of pre-war business wear) Charon buried himself in his thoughts and tried to figure this new quandary out while keeping a weather eye on everyone and their surroundings. Running through his long repository of observations, he tried to pinpoint any in his past that matched up with the actions he had wanted to take, in any shape or form. _I don't want someone else going near her. No, more than that. I don't want someone touching her the same way _I_ do; not the hugging, she does that to everyone. The other stuff_._ What about her, who hasn't wanted _her _to go near...oh for fuck's sakes. No fucking way am I acting like that shitbag Greta._

Scowling, he forced himself to reexamine the woman and her ill-tempered posturing several weeks beforehand. While not exactly the same, it was the closest thing he had to compare his own situation to. Cort was friendly with Carol. Greta did not want her to be. Carol loved Greta, and from what he could figure out, the crass bitch reciprocated it. He spent a moment wondering what the kind woman could see in the sour, truculent hag before the irony of _that_ particular thought hit him, and he quickly moved away from it and along with what he was trying to figure out. _Love, touching, not touching, fuck. This love shit is hard._ He brightened suddenly, the last phrase jogging his memory. This he remembered from their abortive first night and her explanation of the concept. One of the things she had said was that not wanting to do that stuff with anyone else meant that he loved her. Employer or not, when Cort said something _meant _something, it always meant the same for _both_ of them, regardless of hierarchy.

Well, that was fine then. If he could reaffirm that with her, he would presumably have his answer. Charon decided that he wanted it _now._ Cort was talking in a lower tone, obviously trying to keep him from hearing whatever it was she was discussing, the pair having an intense discussion over a sheaf of tattered paper, and he frowned again as she traced a finger over it. _Oh let me fucking guess, a map of where that asshole will be._ "Cort? I lo-"

Looking distracted and weirdly secretive, she turned slightly after flicking a hand at him, hunching over the paper and blocking it entirely from his line of sight. "Just give me a sec, huh? Almost done."

Charon fell silent as he felt something inside of himself fall, and pointedly refrained from thinking of anything as Cort rooted around on her pack for a couple of slightly used and slightly bloody assault rifles, taking a pile of medical supplies and the paper in exchange, stuffing her pockets and any free space on Dogmeat. Tipping a lazy salute at the merchant and his guard, she slogged up the ramp, Dogmeat at her heels and Charon somewhat dejectedly bringing up the rear. "Cort, I-" She cut him off again, one hand sliding back into the pocket she had stuffed the sheet into.

"Save it for the moment and come on! Got what I wanted, let's get in and get settled."

Doggedly, desperately needing to find out what he wanted to know, he tried a more oblique approach. "What's the paper? Did you find out where that asshole merchant is?" If this didn't work, he was giving up before he felt any worse. _I'll leave it alone until tomorrow. I can wait that long, even if I don't want to._

If he had kept asking, things would have turned out a lot simpler and with a lot less notoriety added to their burgeoning tally onboard. As it was with the way things _did_ fall out, he didn't have to wait for the next day. He didn't even have to wait an hour.

* * *

**Cort** glared up at the ghoul with no small amount of asperity, tamping down her glee at finding something with Doc Hoff to surprise him with. "The paper is none of your beeswax, and yes, I found out where _Crow's_ going to be later." Pausing long enough to flick a bottle of purified water she had purchased at the beggar situated halfway up the stairs, she clumsily bolted up to the intercom, and after waiting for the tedious song and dance of the ramp to complete itself, they walked back onto the carrier. For once Harkness wasn't there to greet them, Cort supposing that was for the best, finding it slightly hard not to think of him like an object as her curiosity got the better of her. _I'd probably stare at him and try to find the damn nuts and bolts. Jeeze, he must be so damned _fascinating_ on the inside._ Coming up the the security officer on duty, she put on her best for-company smile, trying to look pleasant while covered in hunks of gore-splattered armour.

"Hey, is there anyone I can talk to about finding a resident? Guy named Pinkerton, he's a scientist, but wasn't with Doctor Li."

The woman responded almost instantly, squinting her face up in thought. "Pinkerton? I've never heard of him. You sure he's here?"

Cort nodded. Even without the tape, Tulip had been absolutely sure, and Harkness' location was too convenient. "Positive. Is there anyone around I can ask right now that would know, anyone who keeps tabs on folks?"

Looking doubtful, the officer rubbed the back of her helmet. "This time of night? Well, there's Vera Weatherly, and you can _try_ Belle Bonny down in the Muddy Rudder, if you can get her to do anything aside from curse at you. She's been here at _least_ as long as Doctor Li, I think. For anyone official, you'd have to wait for Harkness and Bannon to get up. Chief's on the morning rotation right now and Bannon'll be around when the Marketplace opens."

Grinning cheerfully, Cort gave a short wave and moved inside the city. "Alrighty. Thanks kindly."

"Remember, keep-"

Calling back out, Cort waved again, resisting the urge to cross her fingers just in case. "Our noses clean, gotcha." Kicking the door shut after her companions came through, she leaned against it and sighed heavily. "All _right_, let's go dump our stuff at the hotel and then pick some brains." Getting a non-committal grunt from Charon, she lightly patted his arm before moving on, deciding that whatever was bothering him could wait until they were settled, shrugging as he fell in behind her again instead of beside. _Well, it can't be too bad, he hasn't said anything and doesn't look like there's a stick currently up his ass._ Trotting down the corridors until she reached the hotel and finding Vera Weatherly still behind the front desk, she decided to get business out of the way before her personal queries, figuring caps would grease the wheels. "Room, please!" In return to her polite smile, she received an extremely bright and totally fake one in return, the blonde woman practically oozing supercilious insincerity. _Oh, what the fuck now._

"Oh, I'm very, very sorry Miss, but I'm afraid I can't accept your patronage now, or in future. Subsequent guests complained of a rather, ah, unique aroma after your last stay. I had to have the mattress replaced and the room scrubbed down before they were satisfied. I'm sure you understand."

Tired and overloaded like an abused Brahmin, Cort's temper instantly went from zero to sixty. "No, I do _not_ understand. I've stayed here _twice_ with no problems." _Aside from you yapping my business around like a terrier, but then who _doesn't_ do that. If trying to kill me is a national sport, that's the motherfucking hobby. At least _you_ don't have a fucking radio station._

Charon frowned as Cort started to seethe. As lousy as he felt, he didn't need another fight over his condition on top of everything else, and he _did_ need her to be secure. "Cort, I can bunk outside the door." Reaching over and gently turning her chin towards him, he raised his eyebrows, making sure she understood what he was implying. _Like she'd fucking forget that. Christ, I want to know when these shitting dreams are going to stop_. "I'll be able to hear you if you wake up."

Ignoring the ghoul entirely, Vera blithely talked over his last statement, folding her hands on the desk. "I'm sorry Miss, but that won't work either, not with your..._unique_ set of predilections."

Jerking her face loose from the ghoul's grasp, Cort fixed two very cold eyes back on what was rapidly becoming the only thing in the world aside from a rising, jangling chord in the back of her head. "Please and fuck you very much you gossip-mongering _whore_, but my _what_?"

"I can't rent a room out to perverted trash, to put it plainly. My reputation's been tarnished enough." Vera smiled primly, decided that the insult wasn't enough for the one levied against her, and put the icing on her little barbed cake. "You're damaged goods, dear. Filth."


	11. A Series of Unfortunate Omissions

**Cort **pushed back from the desk, her field of vision starting to go dark. To her it felt like she was looking up from the bottom of a pond she was drowning in, someone dribbling ink into the water as she drifted farther into it, the black closing in from above and below. _And whose fault is it if everyone knows about us, you fucking..just...kill her then the robot, she can scream, can't let it get out. We didn't pass many people in the corridor, it's late, and these fucks are pathetic I can take half the fucking ship out, take them _all,_ all of them all dea-_ She jolted back from the horror she was sliding into as Charon reached over to wrap an arm firmly around her waist, the ghoul tilting his head and sneering down at Vera, his insecurities taking a firm backseat for the moment.

"Oh up _yours_, you slapjawed old bat, I bet no one's gone after your goods for a fucking decade. It's probably hard to fuck something that won't shut the hell up. Come on Cort, we can bunk down in the Lab. Li wouldn't mind, and we won't have to pay for this overpriced, roach-infested shithole again." Tugging, he bodily steered her out of the room. He had noticed the way her shoulders were pulling back and her rocking up on the balls of her feet, and as a consequence swiftly directed her away from the irritating woman before she could degenerate into another pointless fistfight that would most likely result in him having to maim half of security to prevent them from taking her from him. _Fuck, the way her face looks she might've jumped straight to breaking her damn neck._

Allowing herself to be led away as Vera shrieked in outrage, Cort resisted the urge to crumble to the deck and grip her head, her voice coming out strained. "We'll have to make sure to leave everything tidy. She wouldn't like it if we made a mess of things."

"We can do that." Steering her down the corridors and towards the Science Lab, curious heads that had poked out of doorways to see what the noise was about instantly darting back in at the sight of them, he scooped her up against his hip when she faltered on one of the raised bulkhead partitions and continued carrying her until they had reached Li's private quarters.

"My legs work."

"Mine work better." Placing her on the narrow bed, he rapidly peeled her pack and armour away before moving back to secure the doors to both the Lab and the room. He had been more than a little surprised to find both doors open in the first place, finding it an unusually sloppy move for the strict scientist. By the time he got back, Cort had removed Dogmeat's suit and curled up on her side, eyes shut and one arm snugged tightly over the animal. Stripping his own armour and load off, he dropped next to the bed and buried a hand in her hair. "You're pushing yourself too hard."

Opening her eyes, she smiled at him weakly. "No, I'm just...my stomach's upset. That's all."

Charon moved his fingers behind her intact ear, rubbing gently. Her face was pale, the tone of it an almost greenish hue, and he beat down the urge to go back and tear into the Weatherly woman again. _Fucking fantastic, now she's making herself sick over this shit. As if today wasn't perfect enough_. "Do you want anything?"

"No, just keep doing that. Keep doing what you're doing. I'll be fine in a little while, as long as you keep that up." Cort sighed. "Once I feel...better, we'll head down to the bar and ask around, I don't think Vera will want to answer any questions. I sure as fuck don't want to ask them. I do want to get this out of the way first instead of burning up the morning, just in case we need to go outside again."

"You should go to sleep."

Cort thought about closing her eyes and slipping under. Shuddering at the thought of what she would find there, what she _always_ found there now, she shook her head. If she went to sleep like this and woke up like that, she really _would_ start a massacre, and more importantly, she didn't know if she would be able to let Charon stop her. _Oh God, what the hell's happening to me. I really _am_ damaged goods, right royally screwed up in the head_. Curling up even tighter, she buried her face against Dogmeat's as she bunched her hands into pained fists, her voice coming out choked and muffled. "Fucking _deranged_ damaged goods."

Cort not elaborating enough to keep him from misunderstanding, Charon tried to think of how to respond to that, wondering what the hell he _could_ say back to her. Some small, completely reprehensible part of him agreed, and he wished he could cut the offending bit out of himself, like removing a bullet from a festering wound. Another part, and this hurt worse than anything, thought it would be a good idea if he steered her towards the insufferable caravan merchant on purpose when she found him again. The normal, obviously attracted to her smoothskin, who was not going to outlive her like badly but adequately preserved rotting meat, and certainly wasn't going to turn her into a weeping pariah. Mentally beating _that_ thought into total oblivion, he went with one of her own arguments, wanting to do _something_ before she whipped herself up into another fit. "Are not. You're perfect."

Cort laughed bitterly. "To you, maybe." She moved her hand far enough to shove it into a pocket, crumpling up the paper in it. Charon decided the noise sounded like someone shoving broken glass in his ears.

"Who the fuck else matters? None of these inconsequential fucks. _Nobody_ else matters, in here or out there." He tugged on her hair a final time, then pushed up off the floor, forcing himself to sound far more confident than he currently felt. "Screw em. Now come on, we'll go get this crap over with, fix the fucking tin can and go the hell home."

"Okay." Snucking back on her nose, Cort sat up and strapped her pistol back onto her left hip when he held it in front of her. "Thank you, but I don't think I'll need that to order a drink with."

Looking at her critically as she stuffed her pockets with caps and then slumped towards the door, one hand working the lever while the other stroked the dog's head, the ghoul thinned his lips and then slung his shotgun over his back before following. One never knew, especially with her.

* * *

**Belle** Bonny turned out to be just as friendly as Cort remembered her to be, which was not at all. Fifty-five and sharp as a broken bottle, the only thing tighter than the bandanna on her head were her lips, unless she was slicing someone apart with them. She used them on her as the trio made their way down the staircase and into the pit of the deserted bar, Dogmeat looking like he was trying to avoid touching his paws to the sticky floor at all costs.

"Oh look, it's Chatty Cathy. Order a drink or get the hell out." Belle narrowed her eyes, looking alternately at Dogmeat and Charon. "And remember to-"

"Yes, I _know_. Keep the mutt from pissing on the bar." Cort rolled her eyes as the woman's mouth opened again. "Yes, _both_ of them. Christ." Sliding onto a stool, she decided that there was no point in wasting time on pleasantries. They hadn't worked the last time she had come down, asking around for Moira's book project. All she had gotten was overcharged for her drink and then herded back up the stairs by the ape of a bouncer. Dogmeat was currently sitting next to the dark-skinned man, the area around Brock the only clean space on the deck, and the pair were giving each other the exact same 'start shit and your ass is mine' stare. Cort turned back to face Belle as Charon dropped down in the mismatched seat to the right and proceeded to do the same thing with the bartender. _Jesus the atmosphere in here is so soothing. How the fuck am I supposed to start this conversation off. It's like trying to get blood out of a Goddamned stone. One that pelts you for trying._ "Scotch. Scotch?" She turned to the ghoul, who rolled his eyes and shrugged. "Two scotch."

"Hallelujah. Caps on the bar."

Counting out the money, Cort picked up the glass of liquor and sniffed, then delicately stuck her tongue in it, Belle not seeming to find anything amiss with the behaviour. Nodding to Charon when she found no evidence of bodily functions in it(at least any _obvious_ ones), she went back to her problem. Crankiness aside, having the puzzle to work over was making her feel more like herself, and she considered how to get what she wanted as she sipped at her rotgut. _Well, maybe a trade. I've done one stupid errand, I've done them all_. She looked up at the bartender as she ran a finger around the edge of the glass, wondering if the smears on it were countless scratches or leftover spittle from a previous patron. _Living it up out here. Yup_. "Belle, you ever need anything done?"

"I need you to shut up and keep buyin' until you're dyin'. Which you can do outside, unless there's enough cash on your corpse to pay for someone to shift you overboard."

Cort was sensing a theme. _Shut up and drink, or get out. Maybe it's as simple as caps on the bar._ She drained the glass, gulping down the remaining liquor in one go. "Nother one." Belle grunted and slopped another measure in before she had finished counting out the caps, which she took as a sign of progress. "I'm looking for someone."

"Bully for you."

Encouraged by something that wasn't a direct insult or a directive to go fuck herself, she repeated her previous actions, knocking back another finger of scotch. "Yeah. Someone suggested you were a person who was in the know of where to go." Cort stopped herself from smiling just in time. _Heeh. I rhymed. Wow, this shit is potent._

"Somebody needs to keep their mouth shut if they want to keep their tongue."

_Damnit_. "Nother one." Settling herself in for a long slog, she tried calculating exactly how much she had jammed into her pockets and how far it might get her. Left out of her calculations was the amount of weight she still had to regain, something that was seriously cutting down just exactly how much alcohol she could take. The bar's stock being next door to moonshine didn't help in the slightest. By the time she had her eighth strikeout with Belle, Cort was nearing third and ready to puke on home plate. Wobbling slightly, she nearly fell off her stool when a quiet voice rasped out from beside her.

"Cort."

She blinked, having almost forgotten the ghoul was next to her. He had done nothing for the entire hour but sit and nurse the hell out of his drink, alternately brooding at the wall or at his increasingly inebriated employer. "Hmm?"

"Maybe you should stop with the swill for now." Charon rubbed a hand over his face, Cort having turned around halfway through what he was saying to watch a blonde woman in pigtails trotting down the stairs, quietly talking to herself.

"Hey, it's Trinnie. She's like Nova, 'cept she's stuck in a bottle instead of an inhaler." She turned back, giving him the sodden upset look that only a drunk could have, belatedly realizing that they had done something socially improper. "That wasn't very mannerly of me. Remind me to apologize when the room stops spinning." Letting her eyes wander, she appeared to be following it as it went.

"_Cort_."

She focused back in on him fully, feeling rather punchy and too happy to move. "What? Look, I'll do what I want, alright? Leave me alone and don't rain on my parade." Sliding a hand into her pocket, she crumpled the paper wedged in it. _Mother hen_. _I'll make it up to him later, but right now there's business to take care of._

Tired, feeling rejected and more than a little petty hearing her manhandle the map again, Charon snorted and retreated into himself. _Fine, she can have it her way. I'll fucking pick her up when she keels over and drag her out. Watch me not be sympathetic when she's retching her guts out before morning._ Turning as feet started noisily stamping down the stairs, he focused on the three people entering the bar instead, taking comfort out of doing his job and seeing Dogmeat do the same. On face value, they weren't much, standard Wastelander garb, grubby packs and hunting rifles all around. Stupid, slack-jawed and scruffy, if he had wanted to label them with a description. The one in the lead yelled out.

"Hey Belle! Slap them bottles up on the bar, we've got stuff to trade."

Bonny responded instead by crossing her arms and glaring like she was trying to freeze bits of them off. "Be still my cold dead heart, it's the Goddamn Sparkle boys. If it's more roach meat you can shove it up your well-worn asses, Duncan."

"Is that any way to treat the men who just brought in prime 'lurk flesh?"

Charon tuned out as the pair started bartering, Belle snappish and the Wastelander smarmy. One of the other two was approaching Cort. He sat up. One of the other two was _touching_ Cort. And she was_ smiling_. Like she did for him. Like she had for the merchant. Charon shut his eyes, not wanting to see what came next. _Fuck._

_

* * *

_

**Ironically**, if Cort had made hauling off and decking the grabby bastard her first order of business, the encounter would have been over almost instantly. Charon would have immediately acted instead of wallowing in hurt confusion, Brock would have thrown one or all of them out for security to deal with, and Belle would have dismissed it as a regular, run of the mill evening. As it was, it turned into the biggest bar brawl she had seen in fifteen years(twenty if she discounted the incident with the Brahmin calf. After two decades she _still _couldn't figure out how the hell that group of herders had gotten it past security, down the stairs, and stone drunk without her noticing. It had gotten back out as a week's worth of patron's meals, since them starting to butcher it was the thing that had finally tipped her off, and she took the carcass in payment for the mess). Right now nothing was getting past her, and there was a lot to keep track of.

Staring into her dirty glass and admiring the colour of the remaining booze in it, Cort's initial reaction to the arm that slid around her was to be pleased and slightly aroused by the way the hand on it was rubbing her side, before she noticed that instead of large, slightly cool and muscular, it was puny, sweaty and gaunt. It was also coming from the wrong direction. _Wait, that's not Charon. What..._ Turning her head and staring up at a mousy-haired, scruffy Wastelander smelling like Mirelurk and at least thirty days from a good bath, she blinked and kept smiling, since he was also. He was also now squeezing uncomfortably close to the base of her right breast. More than a little buzzed and not actually being genuinely molested as of yet, all she did was blink a few times before defaulting into polite diplomacy, the scotch making her sound far more cheerful than she meant to. "Now what do you think _you're_ doing?"

"Just getting acquainted, darlin'. M' Jonah, and these here are my brothers Duncan and Ollie. I haven't seen you here before, you come here often?" He smiled, displaying surprisingly white teeth in a dirty face.

She snorted. "And I suppose you're going to want to discover me like Columbus next. You have any lines that aren't a few hundred years out of date?" Cort rolled her eyes as he leered, for whatever reason encouraged by her response. _Christ, this prize is probably encouraged by a girl breathing._ "Why don't you sidle on over?" She flicked her hand away from her, making the glaring oversight of not verbally stating that she wanted him _away_ instead of _towards_, and Charon twisted to lean onto the bar, pressing his glass to the side of his forehead, eyes still clamped firmly shut.

Looking at the way the _kid's_ eyes were hardening up, Belle snapped out again as Brock started moving away from the wall, Ollie moving to crouch down next to Dogmeat, looking like he was trying to make friends and keep himself the hell out of the equation. "Fellas, why don't you see if Trinnie's feeling friendly tonight, huh?"

"You're a nice ol' fella aren't you? I had a pup like you once."

Duncan piped up as Cort started squirming, belatedly realizing that she was effectively trapped against the bar. "Aw Belle, we've all had Trinnie." He looked over to the table where the other woman was sat. " No offense gal, but I want something fresh."

Cort tried friendly one more time. "Come on, _please_."

Trinnie sneered and made a rude gesture. "I could have said the same thing about you." The blonde reached up to wrap a hand around the neck of a beer bottle as he started moving towards her.

"Let go of me. _Now_." Charon's eyes popped back open as Dogmeat peered around the man politely scratching his ears.

Belle's eyes narrowed to slits, watching a bad situation get worse. The Vault girl had moved about as far as she could towards the ghoul, who was suddenly looking like he was about to invest himself in the situation, and she would bet her last cap he was going to buy in with lead if the rumours about the pair were true. In her experience, any man that big and that ugly, nevermind that it was a ghoul(maybe in this case _especially_ because it was a ghoul), was possessive as hell once they noticed someone sniffing around their property, and trespassers usually ended up shot. Repeatedly. She briefly wondered why it had taken him that long to pick up on it before dismissing the thought. No, the question she had to figure out the answer to, the only _real_ question, the only one in the fucking _world_ right now was who was going to pop first in tonight's set of rejects. "Jonah, you know I don't stand for shit like that in my bar." She raised her voice further, not turning as she talked to the one making for the tables. "And don't think I can't hear that clunker you call a brain thinking about pulling shit, Duncan."

Ollie(and in Belle's opinion he was the only one with any sense, unfortunately the youngest and having the least amount of clout) stood up. "Shit on a stick, don't you two go and get us thrown out again, Grandma'll have a dang _fit_ when she finds out about it." He threw his hands out, and the dog silently crept past under one of them, making for the bar. "You two are always fuckin' everything up!"

"Shut the fuck up, Ollie." Turning back to Belle, Jonah whined at her and moved his hand north as Cort slapped her own down on the bar, Brock putting one of his on Duncan, and Charon drawing his own into fists as he drew himself up. "Belle, don't be such a hardass. You let shit like the zombie over there in."

"He's not acting like a fucking doped up raider. I mean it, Jonah, Brock will have you out of here in five seconds fla-"

Cort had him out in two, laid out flat on the floor, the side of her Pip-Boy smeared with blood as she snarled down like her dog was from the floor behind her. The remaining three left plenty of time for all hell to break loose.


	12. Tear it Up? He Tore it Off

**It** had been sheer luck that had allowed Cort to propel Jonah down without his taking her with him, the angle of his arm at an improper angle and his hand not gripping firmly enough. He promptly solved this impasse by kicking her seat right out from under her, sending Cort crashing to the floor with one leg tangled up in the stool's rungs and bellowing like an enraged Brahmin. Lashing out with a hand, she sunk it into Jonah's hair and pulled, shrieking even louder when he reciprocated the treatment. Kicking out, she dimly wondered what the hell _else_ was getting in the way of her legs when the stool impacted with something. She kicked again, planting her bootheel in like a mule and using whatever it was to propel herself onto Jonah, who was screaming back.

"You're gonna get it whether you want it or _not_, you fuckin' cocktease!"

Eyes flat and hard as river stones and hair flying up like a wild mane as she dug in harder, Cort found her words in a brief flash of clarity, flinging them back in a spray of spit. "Oh I'll fucking take it, I'll take it the fuck off and _feed_ it to you!"

Rolling across the floor, yowling and throwing punches, the noise of the metal chair caught up on Cort was drowned out by Brock's scream as Trinnie's bottle, aiming squarely for Duncan, smashed into the bouncer's face instead when he pulled back on the Mirelurk hunter's shoulder, both of which were overwhelmed by a volley of furious barking. Then things really got interesting.

* * *

**Dogmeat** didn't know _what_ the hell to do. He couldn't attack the man attacking his world without hurting her, and at the moment, it looked like she was getting him good anyway.

"YOU BIT ME! YOU BITCH, YOU'RE FUCKING _BITING ME_!"

Any response his world might have made was muffled as she snarled and sank her teeth farther into his chest, twisting her head and fully going to town as she tried to go straight through his leather shirt. The big world looked equally confused. He had instantly followed her down when she crashed to the floor, and had hauled off to punch the offending man in the head, before first world's movements had blocked him. Getting clocked squarely in the face by either her foot or the flailing stool hadn't improved his efforts(the dog thought _both_ had connected, if he went with what his ears had told him), and he was currently alternating between staggering and trying to pull the pair apart.

Whining, mincing his paws and firmly pushing down the urge to chase his tail out of stress, Dogmeat resigned himself to going after one of the others. The one who had scratched his ears so nicely wasn't an option for the moment, he looked just as confused as Dogmeat himself did. The woman smelling of booze looked like she was making out fine with the broken bottle and her target, but he had to make himself useful _somewhere_. Best boys didn't just sit around like stunned pups when their pack got up to the dickens.

* * *

**Charon** didn't know how the hell he had managed to let everything degenerate into this. One minute he had been sitting in baffled misery, just waiting until Cort wanted to leave and he could have her back to himself, and the next thing he knew the entire damn place was in an uproar, his employer suddenly unequivocally broadcasting that _no_, she _definitely_ didn't want to be touched. He had allowed himself a split-second of overjoyed euphoria before she was suddenly crashing to the floor. Cursing and filled with a righteous sense of male purpose, he went down to assist her, aiming one bunched fist squarely for the side of Jonah's head. It didn't quite turn out to be the rescue he had planned. After Cort had slapped him across the face with the stool and then _kicked_ him in it, it had taken all of his effort just to keep from passing the hell out, spitting blood and stupidly blinking into space before he snarled and dove after her, not quite making it in the exact direction he had thought he was going. Bonking into the side of the bar instead of coming down with an elbow on Jonah's head had driven that fact home.

_Now_, after scrabbling over like a crippled dog, he had a hand locked around the fucking bastard's neck, and if he could just get his girl to let go this was one fuck who was going to have his head detached. Scrambled brains or no, this close up _nobody_ was getting the hell away from him, and he wasn't going to settle for just snapping the neck, oh no, he was going to do everything including drowning the asshole in the fucking kitchen _sink_. If it came down to it, both massive arms could simply crush the life out of him, and he could get at least some satisfaction out of breaking some ribs along the way. _If _Charon could get his employer to let the fuck go, and he shook Jonah like a rag doll, tossing both of the fighting pair around with the motion. "Cort, drop it. Drop it! Fucking DROPPIT!" Watching her latch on even harder as Jonah gave up punching at him to grab her sides and twist, he swore. _Fuck it, just fuck it, I'll snap his damned neck and end this shit, to hell with making myself feel bet- _And that was when something new dropped on him like a ton of bricks.

* * *

**Ollie** took one good, long look around, sighed, and resigned himself to throwing himself into the fray and fighting for his brothers. One, they were family, and two, if they noticed him not helping out he was going to end up with a good thump anyway, and nobody around to pull them off eventually like there was here. Sighing again, he let out a reluctant cry somewhere between a roar and a yodel and went for the closest target. It might be an easy one anyway, he was confused as hell and at least _looked_ slow, and Ollie was fast. Weren't the normal rotbags all supposed to be slow and stupid?

* * *

**Brock** didn't know where he was and didn't much care. He just knew he wanted to stay there, wherever there was, as long as it meant not having to move for the next _year_, and if someone could please plug his ears up to muffle the screaming first, he'd be happier than a radroach in shit while he did it.

* * *

**Trinnie** had just wanted a damn beer or twelve, and had been making her way around the tables, finishing off the dregs in the bottles left behind as she normally did before putting out any caps. She had found one almost half full, and was pissed as hell when she lost all of it trying to belt Duncan(she would have to figure out some way to make it up to Brock, _after_ making sure that he didn't want to kill her. He was too good a customer to lose, damnit, he even _tipped_). Right now Duncan was making a passable attempt at belting her with a chair, and he probably would have connected well enough to put her down for good, game over Trinnie, no more drinking or doing it or _anything_, when this damn _dog _flew out of nowhere like a furry little angel. Had she known the animal, Trinnie would have recognized him making what was one of his favourite and decidedly _not_ angelic attacks. She belched and let out a relieved sigh as the mutt hit paydirt, his target's high _'eeeeeeeee' _noise broadcasting his success. "Wow pooch. Good on you. At least one of us was finally able to find it."

* * *

**Belle** quite possibly might have run for security for the first time in...well _ever_, if she thought she could have made it to the stairs. Trinnie was fully invested in watching the dog swing from Duncan's crotch, and Brock was _still_ wiped out on the floor, completely and utterly out to lunch. The Vault kid and Jonah were locked in a bizarre death grip, by now the hunter starting to try to bite her back, the kid's hunching down meaning that all he was getting was a mouthful of hair. The ghoul had gotten a good grip in on him before Ollie had given off a long suffering groan and tackled the giant, and Belle had a fair to average notion that the only reason he hadn't managed to rip the smaller man's head off yet was because he was still a few snack cakes short of a box from the whacks he'd gotten. From the way he was squinting and shaking his head like a moldering bull, she was pretty damn positive he was trying to make up his mind about _which_ Ollie in front of him was the real one to grab. Addled or no, whenever he caught the one that was physically there, he looked like he was going to have one hell of a field day, the scrambled brains doing absolutely nothing to negate how he was moving. If Ollie didn't see that, the light, eerie fluidity that spelled out pure death in a man of that size, he had a lot less sense than she had originally given him credit for. She decided to give him one last chance to use what might be there before she started acting up herself.

"Ollie! Last chance, get your ass out of here before I lump you in with your shit-for-brains family!"

He looked at her grimly before yelping and leaping back, barely avoiding the massive hand reaching for his head. "Sorry Belle, if they're in it, I'm in it, no matter what."

"Have it your fucking way." Letting out an aggravated snarl, she reached under the bar. This mess was rapidly approaching the stage where everyone would start to think about actually killing each other instead of just trying to, and eventually one of them was going to remember that they were all packing heat, and if a gunfight started up in here, Harkness would shut her down for good. The new chief had been impervious to the suggestion of bribery on just a friendly basis, and if he saw _this_ fuckaroo, there was no amount of caps in the world that would keep him from ridding himself of what he would view as a class-A headache, no matter how long she had been a tenant. Looking down at what she had in her hands, she considered if she actually wanted to take this last ditch measure, then thinned her lips as Ollie crashed over a table. _Fuck it for a lark. I've had enough of this shit._ Belle yanked the pins out of the bundle of frag grenades she had pulled from a box hidden under the bar and threw them to every corner of the room, screeching at the top of her lungs. "GRENADES!"

* * *

**Grunting**, Belle looked on satisfactorily, watching everyone take cover as the defused explosives clattered down, the brawl instantly grinding to a halt. While they were about as dangerous as plain old rocks, they still _looked_ real, and the ruse worked perfectly. She had only had occasion to use it once before, and so far back in memory that nearly everyone except for a few old-timers had completely forgotten about it. She would have had a good and hearty laugh for years about it like the previous situation, if it hadn't been for one thing, one stupid, idiotic, flat out achingly heart-jerking _thing_.

Jonah had instantly let go of the Vault dweller, unmanfully shoving her towards the two duds that Bonny had tossed over the bar as he scrambled for cover, and the girl had shrieked like a banshee, the sound barely off her lips before the ghoul had flung himself over, clutching the grenades in both large hands and bunching up around them, his broad back and the biggest buffer of flesh he could put up facing towards the girl. The keening scream that came out of the kid then was the most unearthly noise of pure anguish that Belle had ever heard in her life until the ghoul's joined it, their cries turning into a perfect union of grief.

"_CHARON_!"

"_CORT, RUN_!"

The kid didn't take off, something anyone with any sense would have done. What she did do was scramble over to the curled up figure on the floor, finally kicking the stool loose as she sobbed. Wrapping herself around him, his head tucked under her chin, she blurted out something that would stick with Bonny until the day she died. Even after age started making her fade around the edges, other memories falling into the twilight of her advancing years, it was always undiminished, the words and the suddenly clear, loving voice they were given in.

"Don't worry, when you go I'll be _right_ behind you."

* * *

**Cort** buried her face in what was left of Charon's hair as he screamed against her chest, not letting out words, just a flat out denial of what she was doing. Heart in her throat, thinking hard about finding him immediately after they died, she would have to, he would be _furious_ if he couldn't find her, it took a few minutes for it to sink in that they weren't being blown apart. Stroking the back of his neck, she let out a quiet peep as his ragged panting slowed down. "Charon?"

"Cort."

"We're not dead."

"...No." Slowly unfurling as she let go, he sat up beside her and winced, then balanced the grenades on one of his hands, carefully rocking them from side to side. "There's nothing in these. Weight's all wrong."

They turned as a derisive snort floated down to them. "Of _course_ there's nothing in 'em. I'm not going to blow up my own damned place any more than I'm going to let you yahoos tear it apart." Leaning over the bar, Belle flicked her hand open and closed as the pair stood up, the ghoul leaning heavily on the girl. "Now give those up, I'll need them for the next time a group of morons decides to dance in here."

Charon slapped both down onto the countertop, the motion sending him off-kilter and nearly into it himself, Cort gripping his sides and bracing her feet to keep him upright. "I should ram them up your ass and see what kind of damned jig _you'd_ do, you crazy fu-"

"BELLE!" Everyone capable of movement turned to face Duncan, who had managed to detach from Dogmeat. He was standing up, rifle wavering in his hands, and had pissed himself, the urine turning the bloodstains on his pants into a garish pink hue. With what the dog had done to his nethers, he felt like someone had just poured a pound of salt into the wound and then set it on fire. "Why'd you have to throw them, Belle, I'd almost got him loose and then I had to dodge from 'em and it came clean off, it came OFF, BELLE!"

Belle blanched, looking for the dog. It had moved over behind Trinnie, and looked like it was contentedly in the process of swallowing _something_ down, a blood-smeared tongue coming out to roll up over its nose as the furry throat beneath it flexed. Moving her wide eyes back to the raging mess in front of her, she spoke carefully and firmly. "Duncan, I warned you not to start shit up in my place. You can't push that off on me. Now we can get you up to Doc Preston, I'll even cover the bill, and-"

"You-you'll cover the _bill_? Fuck, there ain't no fixin' _this_, with caps or anything else you stupid, dried up booze-slingin' whore!" Drawing back the bolt on the rifle and chambering a round, he steadied his arms, almost weeping as his voice cracked. "But I can still fix _you_."

* * *

**Afterward**, Cort wasn't sure how the hell she had made it in front of Bonny, just vaguely recalled thinking '_shit, shit, how's she supposed to answer my question if she's dead, I'm not going through all _this _again'_ before suddenly ending up on the deck, her right shoulder burning like someone had shoved a flaming brand into it. She was positive on how Duncan ended, Dogmeat flying into his back and snipping his teeth through the man's cervical column like a set of ivory shears, dead before he hit the ground.

"Goddamnit Dogmeat. You got one head and then the other. Hah." On that note of witty vulgarity, Cort turned to look at Belle as Charon dropped down and clumsily pressed his hands on either side of her shoulder, quietly letting out a rapid and thoroughly enervated stream of profanities. "So can you please tell me where I can find Pinkerton now? I don't want to drink anymore." She hiccuped. "We're both tired. It's a school night. I need to get him home by eleven."

"If _this_ is what happens, I never want you to drink ever the hell again, keep your damned caps. If you were the last fucking customer on earth, I'd suck it up and go out of business _first_." Belle shook her head and looked at the blood seeping out between the ghoul's fingers. "Pinkerton's living in the broken bow section. He don't like company, but I don't think you'd care either way. Just don't rat out that I'm the one who told you. I don't need that kind of headache on top of all this shit _and_ owing you a damned favour."

"_Thank_ you." Cort laid down on the sticky floor, noted Charon still swearing at her and gripping her shoulder harder, then passed out for the second time in a day, too plastered to care.


	13. Lifeguard on Duty

_Yay new reviews and favs! Hi new people! _

* * *

**She** woke up back in the Science Lab, laid out on Li's bed with Charon kneeling beside it, the ghoul carefully withdrawing a Stimpak from below her ribs. Shirtless, she could see that both her sides were covered in swollen tissue from the edges of her bra down to her hips, nasty blackened contusions bunched in what were now retreating circles. The bullet wound was already completely healed, the bloody slug and her hemostats on the blanket beside her, along with a pile of rags in various stages of use, two more depleted Stimpaks and a half empty bottle of glowing water. Her left pant leg was also bunched around her knee, another set of substantial bruises there fading away. Groaning as the new spate of itching settled in and hesitantly patting over her ribs, she turned to look up at him. "How did I get back here? I need to go find that jerk and rip every single hair out of his body. Then wad it up and choke him with it. I wonder if cats ever choked to death on hairballs, if they did, people could." She squinted and groaned again, sensing she was going way off track. "Maybe I should sober up first. What the hell happened to your _face_?"

The ghoul briefly placed a hand over it, gripped his temples and then shook his head before looking back to her. While still bruised even after drinking part of the glowing water to get rid of the vertigo before he worked on Cort, the pain had dulled to a minor, dismissible ache. "Don't worry about my face, it'll be fi...Cort? Ah, fuck." Watching her own go rapidly, alarmingly pale, he quickly scooped an arm behind her shoulders and tilted her forward, placing a rather dirty bucket he had retrieved from the Lab for this express purpose on her lap. He made it just in time, Cort instantly slapping her hands around it and puking her guts out, expelling the cheap liquor and anything else still left in her stomach. Ghouls weren't much for throwing up, but there had been enough incidents with Patchwork and enough smoothskins in the Ninth Circle over the years for Charon to have the unique and possibly unenviable skill of knowing exactly when someone was going to lose their lunch. He sighed as Cort continued to retch and placed a hand on her back. On more than one occasion it had been lost over _him_, the sots looking for the closest corner and too plastered to see anything else. "That's it, go on. Sick all that shit up."

Winding down, throat feeling like she had swallowed a pound of broken glass, Cort worked up a mouthful of saliva and spat into the pail one more time. Cursing at the strings of drool left on her, she moved to wipe her face and stalled when she saw the smeared rust and dirt over her hand. "This bucket is disgusting."

"Well it definitely is _now_."

Trying not to feel entirely humiliated as he took it away and then gently cleaned her face and hands with a wet rag while she tried to keep upright, she grabbed up the bottle of water and downed the remaining contents as Charon got up to move the fouled bucket out of the room. Closing her eyes in relief as the radiation tickled over her irritated throat, she scrubbed her tongue around until the foul taste was gone from her mouth completely before swallowing the last of it. Her levels weren't high enough to heal anything, currently middling around the low teens, but it still felt unbelievably soothing. Feeling slightly clearer, she piped up as the ghoul returned to where he had been. "You didn't answer my other questions. I don't really care about the cat thing, but the other stuff would be nice to know. Like what happened after I, ah." She flicked her fingers delicately.

Dropping back onto his knees, he rolled his eyes and started inspecting her for anything hurt he might have missed, fussily rolling down her pant leg when he found nothing else. "I carried you here. Security showed up after the gunshot. Crap happened between them and Bonny I don't give a shit about, and you don't need to either. The fuck who was pawing at you made it halfway to the outside before security nabbed him, so don't worry about it. The little squirt who tried going after me was knocked out in back, smacked himself into a wall running away from the duds. Both him and the other one'll be thrown off the ship in a day or so. Bonny told Harkness, who was not fucking surprised to see you there, by the way, that the three of them tried to jump you and kill her, so there was no reason to hold any of us. She said consider yourself repaid."

The security chief had offered to bring Doc Preston down for everyone, stating he was going to have to wake him anyway for Ollie and Jonah, but the rest of them had all said no for various reasons. Charon had declined for them both after calming down enough to realize Cort had only blacked out from being drunk(the snoring had been a rather large clue), noted that the gunshot wound was something he could easily take care of himself, and because he had had just about enough of thinking of and seeing other men touching her. He had had _more_ than enough, and it showed, Harkness not questioning his refusal. The chief hadn't questioned much of _anything_ after finding out why Duncan's corpse had a gaping hole in the crotch, only looked inexpressibly tired.

Cort clumsily twisted herself around and glared at him, shifting suddenly from addled to angry, her head straightening out even further. She had been prodded and then flat-out molested, and he had sat there and done nothing. Anger notched up into fury. "Well one of them _was_ trying to jump me. Where the fuck were you? Why didn't you do anything damnit, he was poking me like he was trying to figure out if I was ripe or not. His fucking hand went everywh-" She froze before jamming a hand down into her pocket, looking relieved when the contents made a crumpling noise. "Shit. Okay good, it's still there."

"I didn't know I was supposed to prevent things like that." Charon shrugged, aware that he had made some kind of oversight but not quite willing to admit it. Not after she had pawed for the map again. "He didn't start out trying to kill you."

She stared at him, stunned at his almost flippant tone. He had _never_ sounded like this before. "Wha...what the fuck is _wrong_ with you? Didn't him doing that bother you? At _all_?" This time he let out an extremely familiar snarl.

"It drove me up the _fucking_ wall."

"Then why didn't you _stop_ him?" He shrugged again, the nonchalant motion pissing her off even further.

"It's not my place to dictate who you decide to interact with."

Cort shook her head, completely lost. "Inter...interact with? Yes it is, you're my...I'm yours!"

"I don't understand what that has to do with it." It was the ghoul's turn to look baffled, his anger ebbing slightly before her next words fanned it back up again.

"It has _everything_ to do with it! How the fuck can't you _know_ that?"

Charon cracked. Hurt, still jealous, confused and knowing he had misunderstood something vital from the way she was acting, he was frustrated to be at a disadvantage and not knowing the cause of it, _again_. Even worse was the dawning realization that he had failed to meet her requirements and prevent her from being hurt because of his behaviour. Lifting his arms up, he yelled at her. "How the fuck am I _supposed _to know? I don't know how _any_ of this shit with you is supposed to work unless you fucking _tell _me!" He stood up as she pushed off the bed and stalked to the other side of the room, rounding on him when she reached the far wall and yelling back.

"Well it sure as shit and sugar doesn't work with other guys trying to get into my Goddamned _pants_!"

"What, aside from that fucking merchant?"

Torn between bafflement and outrage, Cort flung her own arms out, her hair fluffing wildly as she screeched. "_WHAT_?"

Reminding himself again that he shouldn't be angry with her for doing what she wanted to, that he _definitely_ shouldn't be getting into a screaming match with his employer, he still found that he didn't much care. Everything today had hurt in one way or another, absolutely _everything_, and he was worn down to the nub. Cort's continuing divided attentions being rubbed in his face again was the last straw. "I know how bad you want to get back to him. You've been rubbing that fucking map in your pocket hard enough all night to set it on fire."

Feeling a new layer of puzzlement being heaped on her poor inebriated brain, she let her voice drop back down. "Map?"

He snorted, irritatedly flicking one hand towards her hip as she looked at him blankly. "You got it from the other merchant to find that shithead."

Cort blinked slowly, her mind refusing to turn over for a few seconds before the meaning of what he had said sunk in, the reason for his weird behaviour dawning on her at the same time. _Oh that...you're frigging kidding me, he's not, no way. _ "Fucking _here_." Digging the crumpled sheet out of her pocket, she flung it at him, making a disgruntled screech and stamping her foot when it did nothing but make an unsatisfactory flutter to the vicinity of his legs instead of impacting off of his chest. Thumping to the floor, she turned around and stared at the wall. "It deals five times the damage of a regular frag grenade, I thought you would like it. I wanted to make up for being stupid in the ducts today, I was excited and couldn't decide when to give it to you, and _that's_ why I kept fussing with it."

Charon delicately picked up and unfolded the paper as she drew her knees up, examined what was clearly a homemade schematic for constructing a rather impressive explosive device out of a Nuka Cola Quantum, and proceeded to feel like a complete and total idiot. Edging his fingers around as if the sheet was something too hot to touch, he spoke quietly, the resentful anger running out of him entirely. "I thought...I know you like seeing him. And doing other..._things_." Feeling uncharacteristically prudish and more than a little embarrassed, he flicked a hand at his mouth as she turned back to glare at him, snorting when he straightened up out of reflex.

"I do, and I did, but now I'm with _you_." Cort sighed, twisting her hands together in front of her shins as he carefully folded the schematic up and placed it in one of his own pockets. "Charon, what did you think I meant, when I told you I was yours?"

"You're mine, my permanent employer. You will not sell or transfer my contract under any circumstances." Charon continued on silently in his head. _You _are_ my contract_. He held back a flinch, the thought somehow feeling dangerously close to flaunting the document itself. He had felt it, known it since their encounter with the Deathclaw, but this was the first time he had stated it so clearly to himself, and as a result stiffened up even further. "I may touch you how I want whenever I wish, if you choose to permit it."

Resting her chin on her knees, she suppressed another sigh as the ghoul settled even further into formality. _Oh God, if he stands any straighter he's going to turn into a board. Every time I let myself slip into thinking that he's a normal person, something comes up to slap me in the face._ "And you're not seeing the problem with that and others groping me?"

He winced, shutting his eyes. He saw the problem, saw it crystal fucking clear, and the problem was _him_. His undisciplined behaviour and the messy results. "It's not my place to dictate who-"

She cut him off, finishing the statement. "I interact with, would you _quit_ saying that." Cort let out her breath in a rush. "Christ, Charon, that's not what I meant when I said I was yours, I was saying-" Seeing his eyes suddenly snap wide open in shock, she cursed and came up off the floor like a shot, sensing her verbal foul-up immediately. _Me and my big sloppy mouth. I can't ever say anything right._ "Hey hey hey, no don't. I didn't mean that." Cort blinked, processed her words again, and promptly felt like shooting herself in the foot as punishment for terminal stupidity. _Aww craaap. Why do I always have to try and explain these things sloshed and exhausted._

"You didn't mean it." Feeling the bottom of the entire wretched day fall out from under him, Charon laced his hands over the back of his neck, only prevented from crumpling to the floor when Cort crashed into him, her arms locking around his waist. Desperately looking for comfort, he dropped both hands down to bury them in her hair as she babbled against his chest.

"Nono_nooo_ I didn't mean to upset you, all of what you said is true, I'm never giving you up, ever, promise. I _promise_." She concentrated on what she wanted to say next, carefully inspecting the words before letting them run loose out of her mouth. "I'm trying to say me being yours means something different on top of that." She worked her brows together. "Well, kind of the same, but not quite."

Charon tightened his grip on her hair, still distressed. "I don't _understand_." He twisted his hands, winding himself up even further. In the last forty-eight hours he had gone from worrying about her aging to death to agonizing over having to share her to just now thinking he was going to lose her entirely, slavers, molerat attacks and bar fights punctuating each new set of anxieties. _I don't fucking understand anything anymore_.

"I will explain. Just give me a few minutes to think about how to do it." Feeling the excruciating pressure on her scalp lightening up, if not the iron grip her hair was held in, she et out the breath she had been holding. Time to think of just how to phrase what she wanted to tell him was nice, but she didn't expressly need it, already having decided on how to explain the concept in terms that he could relate to. Charon, however, definitely _did_, Cort figuring there was no way she could tell him to let go without upsetting him further. She wiggled her facial muscles slightly to relieve some of the ache when she felt him transition his tight hold into repetitive pulling, progressively winding the motions down into gentle tugs before releasing her entirely. Feeling that, she gave her face another relieved wiggle. _Jeeze. He nearly tore a whole damn clump off of me._ "Better?" He hesitated before replying, sounding mortified when he did.

"I...I took some out." Opening his hands, he stared at the collection of black strands caught up between his fingers, dimly noting again that many of them ended in white. _Fuck, someone shoot me before today gets any worse. I can't take this shit anymore, I can't. Too much, way too much. _ Not knowing what else to do, he carefully gathered the hairs together in one of his palms and straightened them as Cort shook her head and let go of him.

"It'll grow back. Come on and sit down now."

Surreptitiously shoving the makeshift lock of hair inside the paper wedged in his pocket, he followed her back to Li's bed, sitting down on her right when she patted at the space left there.

"Now. Do you remember when I asked you if you knew what it meant when you gave a ring to someone?"

"Yes."

"And you didn't know."

"...No."

"Well, I'll tell you, since you gave me one." He blinked, momentary surprise clearing the anxiety from his face, replaced with sudden comprehension and clinical, studious interest when she held up her right hand, shaking it lightly to make the bracelet on it jostle around. "Remember?"

Charon stared at the silvery, strangely dark metal, his expression softening. He remembered. He remembered hot white flesh pressed against cold glass, her opening up to him and making him feel like he was burning alive. Remembered asking for more and getting it, even after he had given pain in return for the first offering. Wanting to offer her something pretty in exchange for giving up herself. Reaching up, he brought her arm down against his thigh and quietly started fiddling with the bracelet, moving it back and forth between his large thumbs. "Yes."

"This is like...when you gave me this, it's like...this is my contract with _you_." Cort considered briefly that it was the wrong size, the wrong jewellery and on the wrong side, hell the whole wrong body part, and promptly dismissed those as unimportant details. Everything in this relationship was already pretty atypical, and it was the thought that counted. She just had to make sure they were thinking the same thing. "This means that I'm yours in every way, and nobody else gets to have me, in any way, ever."

Feeling a surge of hope rush up as he instantly caught on to what she was saying, her explanation what he wanted to hear and more, was it _ever_ more, he reluctantly pushed it away, defaulting back to what he knew _he_ should be saying. "But it's not my place to dictate who you inter..." He brought himself up short and scrambled for some other way to put it, watching her mouth compress into a line. "You decide who you ah, do, the _stuff,_ with." Charon beat down an urge to slap a hand over his face. _Oh that sounded fucking graceful. Good job, idiot._

Cort rubbed her free hand over her top lip until her mouth stopped twitching, the disgusted look on his face making it difficult. Thinking about how upset and hurt he had been made it easy. _He really thought...and he wouldn't have done anything outside of being cheesed off, and would freaking feel bad about that. Oh, Lord. What did I ever do to deserve him. I don't_. Clearing her throat, she gestured to her wrist. "Yes, and I decided. It's just like I said. When I accepted _that_, for me it meant that I only wanted to do the ah, _stuff_, with you. You are the only one that I will permit."

Definitely hopeful now, rounding up into pure elation as she confirmed what she had told him, he still hid it for a moment, frowning. "Then why did you let that asshole grab..." Annoyed with himself all over again for the inability to make his mouth work the way he wanted, he flicked a hand again, this time in the direction of her chest.

"Because I was too drunk to know what was happening right away and then too Goddamned polite. I'm still too drunk. Probably still too polite." Her face hardened for a brief moment. "Spent too much time in that bullshit Vault, depending on niceties."

He stopped playing with the bracelet, startled as she sounded eerily like James, his tone and words coming out perfectly in her voice. Hearing it, Charon surprisingly found himself missing the man, even after all he had put her through. Everything had seemed easier before he had died, Cort steadier. _And then he did die. Right in front of her. Perfect._ He snorted, easily dismissing the sentimentality he was feeling. _He's toast, she's still fucked up by it, and I need to know what to do before I fuck up any more._ Charon glanced over to her, phrasing his next statement carefully, looking for an answer given in no uncertain terms. "So you would have me do what, if that happens again. What actions am I permitted to take."

"You are permitted to snap their fucking hand up like kindling." She shrugged. "Fuck, do what you _want_. That _is_ one of your standing orders." Smiling as he grunted approvingly, she sobered at his next tentative words, almost but not quite daring to be a question.

"You still love me."

She looked at him carefully. Uncharacteristically hunched over, chalky eyes pointedly not connecting with hers and his head tilted to one side as he resumed spinning the bracelet back and forth on her wrist, Cort felt a wave of unreality wash through her, struck again by the thought that the overgrown, ancient ghoul was somehow younger than she was. Reaching over with her free hand, she turned his head to face her, and felt it run through her all over again at the open, pleading look she caught on his face before he could hide it. "Well yes, you big dope, of course I love you. Always." Cort suddenly found herself swiftly crushed up in a fierce hug, his arms wrapped tightly around her as he roughly pulled her into his lap. Trying to yelp as the breath was squeezed out of her, her efforts were completely blocked by the ruined lips fervently pressing down over her own. Feeling him desperately clinging to her, rough hands digging into her back, she decided air was overrated compared to that sort of need. _I can't breathe and he's the one who feels like he's drowning. Oh, Lord. Don't let me pass out again, please._


	14. I Do

_Hey peeps! Little delay in the flow, my laptop went resoundingly tits up last week. USB port snapped, power port snapped, backlight went and then my motherboard started circling the drain. I think it's dead, Jim. So now? Now I'm on a snazzy new (cheap) netbook and getting used to the ditty screen. Thanks very much for all the reviews on the last chapters, and welcome to my new readers, on this installment and the first! You guys have all made writing this stuff like ten times better. _

_

* * *

_

**Noticing** Cort's sides hitching against his arms, Charon realized what he was doing and promptly forced her mouth open, pushing his own breath into her lungs to keep from having to let go. Hearing her whimper, he considered stopping; she was drunk and worn out, he was injured and worn out, and it was late or early, who the fuck even _knew _anymore with the batshit schedule they were keeping, but then Cort brought her arms up around him, her bracelet -her _contract_- rolling smoothly down the back of his neck as she moved. Feeling it, he felt himself lose all control. Pushing her back on the narrow bed, practically tearing the remaining clothing from her, he pulled away only long enough to do the same to himself. Kneeling in front of her as she pushed up towards him, he grabbed her hips and slid her against him, both of them gasping as he started to thrust inside, the motions stark and exposed in the harsh lighting of the ship.

Stopping halfway as she let out a sound close to a sob, his face fell into a perfect union of shame and remorse, looking down over her. At that moment it was easy to see her arched back and trembling form as agony over his intrusion. Every move against her suddenly felt like it would be a violation, some base act of perversion, watching his ruined flesh sink into her body, his rough hands obscuring the shape of her hips as he thought of her snaring herself to him. The idea of her being held to her own contract, to _him_, was intoxicating. It was also appalling, the ghoul seeing it in far more serious and grave terms due to his own upbringing. Charon took it as a complete inability for her to separate herself from him, ever. It didn't matter if she had not been tortured and abused into lifelong servitude and obedience, or that her terms were entirely different; if _she _said she was bound to him, that she was only for him, forever, it was true. It was wonderful. It was horrifying. _What the fuck did she ever do to deserve me. She doesn't. _"Cort."

"Charon?" He fought the urge to close his eyes as hers found his, achingly soft and grey meeting cloudy and seemingly dead. "What, what is it? Are you alright? Christ, don't stop _now_."

Swallowing, he felt his throat click, his hands tense. He opened his mouth to tell her it was a mistake, ask if she was sure, tell her _he _wasn't sure, _anything_, and couldn't do it. He could only beg, and cursed himself for it. Lines from a long-forgotten book, the pages lost in the dust of a handful of decades, came back to torture him, and he wondered just what the hell it meant about what he was planning to do. _'Sometimes there is absolutely no difference at all between salvation and damnation'. I don't know which I am, I don't know what she is, and I just don't fucking give a damn anymore. I want to take what she's giving. The hell with it._ "Tell me you want me. _Please_, tell me you want me, _just_ me." He groaned, watching her slender hands slide up to curl tightly around his wrists, feeling the nails digging in sharply as she pulled herself hard against him, her legs twisting around his waist to lock them together as she spoke.

"Want you, _only_ you, ever."

"Oh _fuck_."

Cort laughed. "Yes _please_."

Every move against her now felt like a completion, a pure fulfilment he had never felt anywhere else but in her, her smooth hands drawing him in closer, the heat rising out of her searing away every doubt tormenting him. Sliding his hands under her back, he brought her up against him, loving the feeling of her writhing around in his lap, the motions so close to the first time he had possessed her, had her. _I have her, all of her, mine_. Breathless, he worked his hands into her hair as he worked his nerve up, staring into her eyes and pushing himself to take another leap, depending on her to catch him again, to know what to do. "You are not just the holder of my contract. You _are _my contract." He let out a nervous bark of laughter, getting an unbelievable high from the unthinkable transgression he had just made, feeling thrilled and terrified at finally saying it out loud, and to her. He was to serve his employer honourably and obey, but his primary loyalty was supposed to remain with his contract, the true source of control over his life held in the tattered, fragile sheet of paper. Wilfully trying to ascribe the total authority of the document to Cort, Charon half-expected himself to lock up as he had in the past, freezing like a statue whenever an employer had decided to place it in his hands, and he tensed, waiting to see how she would respond to the daring breach he had just made, and what would happen to him after she did.

Taking in her puzzled look, he held his breath as a myriad of other expressions flitted over her face in a matter of seconds, so swift and mercurial it was hard to see where one ended and the next began. Seeming to reach a decision, she smiled, laced her hands on the back of his neck and gave him the approval he needed, became the avatar he wanted her to be. "Yes."

Charon blinked. _It worked. Oh fuck, it worked._ He was holding her, and still moving, couldn't _stop_ moving with her clinging to him like this. Courage bolstered, he took it even further, letting the words escape out of him in a rush. "I can keep you, hold you, I own _you_." He groaned the last out as she bit her lip and rode against him even harder, her thighs crushing against his sides. "You're _mine_."

Grinning even wider, she nearly shouted it for him. "_Yes!_"

Bringing his hand over her right shoulder and down, he dug his thumb in gently, searching for and finding the hard, flat spot buried under her skin. _This doesn't matter anymore, it's her, it's all her._ Bending his head, he pressed his lips to the same place. There was still a fair amount of trepidation attached to this thought. He could mean it, believe it, but he couldn't know what would actually happen if he was ever confronted with his contract again, if someone else managed to get it away from her. Split halfway between euphoria and worry, he forced himself to fall entirely into the former, finding it took no effort at all once he moved his hand lower, Cort starting to make soft, wonderfully desperate little sounds in counterpoint to his attentions. _It doesn't matter, she'll never let it leave her._ Running his rough tongue over the top of her breast, he straightened back up and finished laying himself open to her, stopped holding the last line within him. _Sometimes there's no difference at all._ Charon let himself go.

"I'm yours." He paused for a moment, the hated words he was about to say feeling suddenly new. He had never said it to her, never said it to _anyone_ unless ordered to say it, the phrase having to be torn out of him by force, and she had never said it herself, never asked for it back. "You own _me_." Charon quickly returned both hands to her hair, working them in as her face became alarmed, the rest of her stiffening up to match it.

"What? No, no no, you don't like it when people-"

He smiled, and she stopped, looking startled for a moment before she smiled back like she always did, responding to the rare expression out of happiness and reflex. _Gotcha_. "Yes. Holding tighter, he moved her head in a gentle nod, getting a hesitant reply back.

"Yes."

Dropping his hands, he rubbed behind her ears, the soothing caress making her more willing to yield to him as it always did, and he smiled again as she quivered. "Say it for me, Cort. All of it."

"You're mine." Looking suddenly shy, she darted her head forward to place her cheek next to his, arms curling lightly around his shoulders; and now _she_ was letting her words out in a rush, hot breath fanning past his absentee ear and hands stroking down the back of his neck, the bracelet rubbing up against his degraded skin like a brand. "and I own _you_."

"Forever." He pushed into her harder, becoming almost frantic with both sets of need._ It needs to be forever. I won't go back, I fucking won't_. "Say it Cort, _please_. I have you, I'm holding you."

Her arms were suddenly tight, crushingly so, and her voice sounded both desperate and relieved, laughing and sobbing at the same time. "Through everything? No matter what?"

"For good or ill, Cort. Forever."

Hands digging into his shoulders, Cort took up the slack and held the line. "Forever. _Promise_."

Charon felt his time with her slip in front of him as he slipped over the edge, felt like he was becoming one damaged half of an immaculate whole, and everything stopped for a perfect, sublime moment. _There's no difference at all_. Cort screamed his name.

Crying out in a mix of release and relief, he pressed her head down against his neck and bucked into her as he suddenly came, shuddering at the apex of it when she bit into him, caught up in the throes of her own orgasm. He did it again when she finally let go and gently licked up through the tender area, quietly running her soft tongue over where she had bitten as he stroked her hair. Feeling deleriously happy, he playfully licked back, getting all the way from her throat to her ear and a taste of hot salt before she squealed, wiggling in a way he could only describe as entirely _delicious_ as she tried to get away from the ticklish attention he was giving her. Pulling back and rising up into a bit of sharper clarity, her face was suddenly coldly appraising, Cort staring at him hard for a moment before she cursed. It was more than enough time for him to see that she had been crying.

"Oh sweet creeping _Jesus_, Charon, what the hell." There was an agonizing split second for his doubts to flare up again, to wait for her to ask him what the fuck she had done, what was she _thinking_, to tell him she had made a horrible mistake by throwing herself in with his lot, one last chance to expect her to finally be like everyone else, before her lips were pressed to one of the bruised areas left on his ruined face, light as a whisper. He held perfectly still as she slowly moved her attentions to all of them, sleepily kissing each one in turn before focusing back on him as a whole. "Your poor face. I hope you got whoever did that to you."

Taking in the exhausted frame draped over him, covered in sweat and saturated in his scent, he briefly laid his forehead against hers. "Yeah. I got them good."

"Good."

She settled farther against him, the scent of her own heady sweetness and cheap scotch filling up his head, just like their last night on the carrier. _Only this time she caught me. Fuck, didn't she catch me then, too? _She groaned, and he came back out of himself. "Cort?"

"Charon, I drank too much."

"I noticed. Ready to conk out now, aren't you." Charon had personally decided he would sleep for as long as humanly possible; he thought somewhere around a week might be adequate, just barely. She shook her head, looking thoroughly disgusted with herself when she yawned halfway through the motion. He laughed, and was surprised by how free it felt, how normal _he_ felt doing it. "What, you want _more_?"

"Uhuh."

"All right, greedy." Sliding his hands to her waist, he lifted her up and laid her back down onto the bed, shifting to lay down beside her on the narrow space. "More I can do."

I don't know if _I_ can."

He drifted his hand down between her legs, slowly stroking the swollen, slick flesh there before quickly sliding two long fingers inside, as far as they would go. Bending his face down to hers as she gasped, he smiled. _She can do anything for me. Anything_. "Let's find out."

* * *

**Charon** woke up for the day to the sound of Cort scrabbling around in her pack, sitting on the floor and naked as a jay. "Where is it, I know I have some more. I kept it for...kept it for cleaning. _Aha_!" Vicious smile of triumph on her bleary face, she extracted a small bottle of vodka, twisting the cap off and taking a greedy chug out of it. "Oh shit, there we are. Hair of the Christing dog that bit me." Wiping the side of her mouth on her arm, she sighed happily, then froze and looked abashed when she caught him staring. "...Sorry."

Pushing up on his elbows, he shook his head at her and sighed, feeling more resigned than mad. "Fuck sakes, Cort. You got yourself hooked?"

Cort dropped her head, her voice coming out small and timid. "Maybe." She looked up again as he swore. "It's all right, I know how to flush myself out, Daddy...Dad taught me. We've got all the gear back at home."

He shook his head again, more strongly this time. "You're not spending the whole way back either crocked or hurting for that shit. We'll stop at the clinic on the way to find Pinkerton."

Looking overly affronted, she gripped the bottle tighter, almost throttling it. "I don't want to waste caps on that! I can do it myself!"

_Yeah, just like you can put down that fucking swill any time you want._ "If half the fucking things are supposedly mine, then _I'll_ pay for it." Charon glared at her as she nipped off another gulp of vodka before guiltily hiding it behind her back. "Stop that!"

She jumped, dropping the bottle. "Sorry!"

"Don't be sorry, just don't be stupid." Rolling off of the bed, he gave his head a final shake and pulled her up before the liquid glugging out of the bottle could puddle around her bare rear. "Come on jackass, I'll help you get dressed." Looking around and taking stock, he cleared his throat and tried to look dignified while gathering up their clothing from around the room, pieces of it strewn everywhere. Pointedly not looking at a weakly giggling Cort as he snatched one of his boots from off the top of a filing cabinet, he dragged their packs over, hauling out a set of clean clothing after primly turning the befouled ones from the previous night inside out and jamming them back inside. Herding slender, sleepy limbs into sleeves and pant legs, he made a series of discreet glances and pokes. _Still too fucking skinny, and you letting shit slide yesterday didn't help._ "There, noodle arms. You can do your own damn boots, I'm freezing my ass off in here."

"Can't let that happen." Watching him dress, she smiled lecherously for a moment before a loud grumbling cut her off. "Ugh."

"Hungry?" She nodded, not looking pleased about it. "I can go get you a Mirelurk clutch. All goopy gel and slithery. Slide down easy enough." Wiggling his fingers suggestively as he dressed, he grinned as she made her own completely obscene gesture back.

"If you make me throw up again I'm ordering you to eat it."

"You don't have anything left to chuck up."

Cort groaned. "That's what _you_ think."

Charon swatted lightly at her hair before turning back to their packs. _What the fuck can I give her that she _won't_ chuck up_. Rooting around through their food supplies, he finally withdrew an apple, something she never refused, and a box of InstaMash, figuring that the bland, innocuous mush would be the least offensive thing to bombard her racked up stomach with. Looking at her critically for a moment, he rolled his eyes and moved his hand from the purified water he had been pulling out to the dirty instead. _She's going to want all the help she can get._ "So what are we doing first. _After_ we go to the clinic."

She gave him another dirty look as he started battering at the clump of dessicated tuber in their dented little pot, then let out a breath in a rush. "_We_ are going to go see about getting into the broken bow section, and find Pinkerton like you said. We can leave the packs in here, stuff up our pouches with everything we need. We're not going that far, and it would be nice to fight as a _person_ instead of a mule for once. Then trade off all the stuff we have left from those jerkwad Talons, then Seward Square, and then home." Cort frowned. "If we didn't need all the caps we can muster I'd go straight there right now."

Charon shoved the pot in front of her(the spoon perched in it looking like a dead metal tree that had taken one look at its growing surface and given up the ghost, along with everything else), getting her petulant manner to depart slightly when he presented the apple next to it. "So let's go if you've got a roach up your ass about it. We'll find more stuff to scav on the way back."

"No, it's just a funny feeling. It's probably nothing." She shrugged, and dug into the pile of beige slop. "Reilly'll only take us a few extra days anyway. What's that, really, when I've been gone for over two months. Charon?"

"Cort."

"Go get the bucket. Just in case."

* * *

_Book quote was appropriated from The Green Mile, if anyone was curious. This is the third reference to Stephen King stuff I've made so far. Definitely no crossovers or any of that foolishness, I'm just a fan._


	15. Watch Your Mouth, I Can't Watch Myself

_Thanks so much for the new reviews/favs! This is possibly the last chapter for a couple weeks folks, I'm working 64 hours next week, half of them graveyard, so I'm going to have the intellectual capacity of burnt toast until that's over with. We're also having a heatwave(thanks a lot, Hurricane Earl) and 104 degree heat + no air conditioning doesn't make Mopps or her netbook a happy camper. I feel like I am burnt toast._

_

* * *

_

**Cort** _was_ hooked, and had disregarded the risk entirely, had in fact welcomed it as a necessary evil, if what she had been trying to do panned out. The bottle of vodka had been the second of two she had been into, not counting the scotch in the Muddy Rudder, and the first of the pair was what had finally tipped her over into a state of addiction again. That had been downed in quiet, measured swallows while she kept one eye on Charon's sleeping form, crawling back and cuddling up when she had finished. While the ghoul would snap awake in an instant once she started tuning up out of a nightmare, slipping stealthily out of the bed(or at least keeping herself from faceplanting noisily on the floor, what with the state she had been in) was apparently still a viable option. Getting soundly trashed again had been an effort in trying to prevent herself from waking him up at all.

It hadn't worked. One hour, two hours, however many hours later, she didn't much care anymore and had stopped taking note of how long it took for her to start having her nightly meltdown, there being seemingly no rhyme or reason to the time it happened, she was awake and sobbing again, the man beside her already in the process of calming her back down. Now, system flushed out but still resoundingly hungover, she was clumping through the carrier with her thoughts in a jumble, giant ghoul and faithful dog in tow, wanting nothing more than to simply get outside and breathe air that wasn't being pumped through centuries-old ventilation systems. _Outside and away from these Goddamned fluorescent lights too. Med-X. I'll try Med-X next, maybe that'll work. Everything else out here is a stimulant. Don't want a stimulant. Jesus I wish I could get back into the Vault, we had everything. Drug-o-freakin'-rama. _They passed in front of the Weatherly, and she skidded to a halt. The robot was by itself. Cort got an idea. "Heeh."

"Cort?" Charon rasped out from behind her, questioning.

She held a hand up and flicked it back towards the ghoul before approaching Mister Buckingham. "Jussaminnit, please." She had to get this over with before anyone else popped out of the woodwork. "Are you programmed to answer questions for potential patrons?"

The robot moved one eyestalk around to peer down at her, managing to make his tinny voice sound almost human with the amount of disdain laced through it. "Madam, you are not to be patron now or in future at this establishment."

"Yes, yes, but the potential is still there, isn't it. Vera could change her mind, the hotel could change hands..." Cort shoved up her visor and pinched the line on her nose while groping for the appropriate way to phrase what she wanted, finally dredging up an old memory of Stanley working on Andy when the dotty robot had come unglued for the nth time. "Ah, respond to query please, affirmative or negative. User is able to request information from Mister Handy unit."

Mister Buckingham gave a series of almost hesitant-sounding clicks before replying. "Affirmative."

"Further query, request. Please calculate pi to last decimal place." She smiled beatifically as the snotty machine juddered in the air, produced a fan of sparks and hit the ground with a dull, satisfying clank, eyestalks twitching in a spastic dance. Somewhere inside the chassis, it sounded like something was going horribly off-kilter with the robot's guts, a low grinding rising out of it as Cort spun around on her heels and resumed her path down the corridor. "That'll take them weeks to fix and even longer to figure out." Wanting to see how Charon was taking her impulsive behaviour, she darted a glance back over her shoulder and blinked in surprise. The only thing the massive ghoul looked like was absently amused and indulgent, appearing to be walking along in his own little world.

Cort turned her head forward again, trudging along with her thoughts in an equally ponderous state, considering what his altered behaviour meant and not making much headway. Wanting to see if he was still attentive to his surroundings, she experimentally flicked her hand in the direction of her pistol, moving it barely an inch towards the weapon. Charon tensed immediately, reacting to her action seemingly without even looking at her, his eyes instantly hardening as they scanned everywhere and dancing back to her every other second.

"What."

Trying to look nonchalant, she shrugged and flexed her fingers back and forth. "Cramp."

"Oh." Reaching out, he took her hand in his right one and firmly rolled his thumb around in her palm, expertly digging it into the fleshy tissue at the base and shifting her knuckles as he kept moving his gaze around, still keyed up and watchful. "Better?"

Cort, deciding that she would have to say she was cramped _everywhere_ later after that little display, sighed out an answer. "Much." He grunted and let go, falling back into the easy, straight backed walk he had been in. _He looks...happy._ She worked her brows together. _No, that's not quite it. Argh, hangovers don't do well for my perspicacity._ She worried at the puzzle like a dog after a bit of marrow, the action soothing her and driving her nuts at the same time. It was partly happy, with some relaxed thrown in, and there was something missing. _Worry? No, it's...it's..._. He could still look worried, had looked extremely damned worried when she had woken up for her nightly sobfest, but the ever-present, so subtle you could miss it unless you were as close as two coats of paint disquiet that he normally displayed was gone. Charon no longer looked like he was waiting for his own personal hammer to fall. Cort smiled as a stream of adjectives came flowing out of her mental dictionary. _That's it. That's the words. He looks serene. Untroubled. Content._ "Do _you_ feel better today?" Giving her a brief but startlingly brilliant smile back, he reclaimed her hand, the sight of it almost disappearing entirely as he laced his fingers in with her own.

"Much."

He kept a hold of her as they made their way to the outside, simply tucking himself neatly in behind her whenever someone came the opposite way down the corridor, although more than one resident suddenly chose to dart down another hall or into a room, seeing them coming. Cort had no doubt that they flicked back out twice as quick as soon as they had passed, and had more than one reason to feel like she was escaping from suffocation when they pushed through the last door and into the early evening air. The idea of pegging them off like molerats peeking out of a burrow was becoming far, far too attractive. Slipping loose of Charon's grasp, she bolted to the middle of the gangway once it groaned itself into place and leaned against the railing with her head pillowed on her arms, wanting to have nothing but air around her. The only people out here were security guards, and they knew how to stare without it being lurid, the only expression on their faces a detached and entirely refreshing '_don't fuck around_' indifference. "Outside. Outside is good."

Charon silently walked up beside her a few seconds later, having slowed down when he realized where she was going, and stood watching her drag in the damp, salt-laden air for a few moments before speaking up. "Do you feel better?" He hesitated, long enough for her to notice even with her brain feeling like it was made up of mildewed pillow stuffing, and she tilted her head around to look up at an equally hesitant face. "Today."

Cort thought that she wasn't sure how she felt. She snorted, the sound not without amusement. _ That's a bald-faced lie. You know_ exactly_ how you feel. You feel like you just got hitched, and hit by a bus. A very, very odd combination._ Starting as the appropriate nature of her last thought sank in, she let out a quiet hoot of laughter. "I feel absolutely, horrendously fucked in the head," and wasn't _that_ the understatement of the year, she mused, pick a card, any card. "But much, much better at the same time." Staring down at the water sluggishly flowing between the shore and the carrier, Cort let her mind wander. Even as wrecked as she had been the previous evening, she remembered everything about it like she always did, and it had been amazing. _He's mine, he says he's mine. _She felt elated at the thought, and her own desperate kind of serenity, which she clung to as hard as she could. "You make everything better. You make _me_ better."

Raising her head as he gave one of his contented grunts, she felt the better parts smothered up, what she saw feeling like an insipid fog stealing over her. Off in the distance, there was an eerie blue glow rising off the bank of the Potomac. It was the Enclave's energy fields around the Jefferson, something she had been too distracted or too wilfully deluded to notice when they came onto the ship the previous day. _Why can't you all just curl up and die. Every last fucking one of you, just expire puking your guts out and rot in the dust where I can watch. I watched him cook to death, baking up like a fucking Mirelurk cake, and I'll, I'll- _Cort closed her eyes as Charon placed a hand on her waist, doing the right thing at the right time like he always somehow managed to.

"We'll be able to kill some of those fucks soon." His other hand reached up to tug at a tuft of hair peeking out of her helmet. "I'll slaughter them all for you."

"That would make me very happy. What makes you happy, Charon?"

"Happiness is a warm you."

Cort smiled. That at least was no problem. She was definitely warm. Doctor Preston had tried to fuss her into getting her temperature taken, deciding that she was feverish after manhandling her arms for the detox treatment, and she had brushed him off immediately once she had found out that the only thermometer he had was for an orifice she considered to be exit only. _God only knows where that thing's been, or in who. Jeeze, I'm _always_ warm, and my Pip-Boy isn't complaining. I just have a happy internal furnace. Besides, Barrows knows way more than that dry fart Preston does. _She grinned wider, feeling Charon flatten his palm against her side after nudging one of her belted pouches out of the way. _I have a happy heat addict too._ The hand slid into her waistband. _Okay, maybe just a me-addict_. "Come on then, we'll find Pinkerton and get warm me back into warmer bed. I want to see if I can hack it in the sunshine tomorrow, I think nighthawking it is making me loopy...er."

Charon straightened up and became all business as she continued down to the stairs and off onto dry land, now poking at her Pip-Boy. "There's an access door on the side of the bow. We could attempt entry there." He frowned. "It's easy to reach, obvious. Probably rigged to fuck."

"Well, I see two ways into the thing on here, so we'll try the side door first and then find this other one if that doesn't work." Cort flicked a finger off the screen as they walked along the shore, Dogmeat trotting at the edge and pausing to eat various unidentifiable things when he decided noone was looking. "If I can figure out where it thinks the damn thing is. It's either gone dingy or having another hissy fit."

He rolled his eyes. "What else is new."

Turning on her light and narrowing it into a thin line with the cover as they crossed over the small pier to the side of the bow, Cort ran it along the edges of the door and whistled at what she saw. "Well, _I'm_ not breaking into it. The locks on this are different from the other ones on the ship, and way the hell over my head. Can you blow it off?"

Resting his shotgun on his shoulder, Charon reached over and made a series of small taps and thumps, head tilted in thought as he listened to the different sounds. "Yes, if I used every explosive we have. But I'd annihilate the living fuck out of everything. Probably tear the plating down to the waterline. Door's reinforced on the inside." He rapped two sections on the metal, one sounding hollow and the other so muffled it almost sounded like the steel was repelling his tap back at him. "Hear that? There's shitloads of those running up and down."

She made a face. "Well that's out then. I don't think Pinkerton would like us practically nuking his home. Let's find the other way in. Maybe it's on the broken off end." Walking back up along the shore, Charon silently moved around to her left, shotgun held ready. Grumbling, she brought up her repeater and braced it. "What now."

"Wastelander. Nothing but a combat knife. Idiot." He shook his head and spat, then retreated into his customary state of aggressive silence.

"Hey. You!"

Cort shook her head as the woman called out, who was trying to sound quiet and not succeeding. "Oh God, me." Sighing with a fatalistic sense of purpose, she came out from behind the massive wall of ghoul and watched a dark-skinned woman in Brahmin skin garb hurrying towards them, who ground to a halt when she finally spotted the shotgun and repeater aimed at her. Cort squinted, then twisted her left arm enough to shine the Pip-Boy's light over her, the sudden bright assault making the other woman flinch. She was older by at least one or two decades, or at least she thought so. She was also someone familiar. "Wait, I know you, you live on the ship. What the hell do you want?" Wincing, she rephrased the question as the woman moved her eyes from one gun to the other, finding her own harshness unpleasant._ Now where did that come from? I will not turn into a rude asshole, I've been changed enough. I don't want to change anymore. I have _manners_, damnit_. "What would you like to speak with me about, you obviously have something on your mind." she blinked as the woman displayed her own glaring lack of social niceties.

"You've been rather _busy_ lately. Asking questions, 'investigating'. So is that it? You're some kind of investigator? A detective for hire? Or do you have some kind of personal grudge against an innocent android who simply wants to be left alone? Please, tell me. I'd _really_ like to know."

Cort felt her desire to be polite depart at the harangue, driven entirely away by the condescending, sarcastic tone she was being bombarded with. "I'd really like to know why you think it's a good idea to be that fucking mouthy with two guns aimed at your head, one of which could turn it and half your torso into little meaty _chunks_. Again. Who the hell are you." Cort mentally shook her own head as the woman continued on in the same snappish tone.

"Fine, let's cut to the chase. My name is Victoria Watts. I work for a movement whose goals are directly opposed to your own, apparently."

"Oh." Cort brightened, the act of putting things together calming her slightly. "The Railroad. Yeah, I know all about you."

Visibly taken aback, Victoria paused slightly before continuing, thrown off her stride and into a semblance of civility. "...Yes. It seems you're trying very hard to locate an android my associates and I have tried very hard to hide. You can see how that puts us at odds." She frowned as Cort started laughing, letting out squeaky little wheezes as she tried to remain quiet in the exposed area.

"Hard? You tried _hard_? Jesus shitkicking Christ, do you know how many holotapes I've collected on him? Some of which by the way were only given to me because the folks with them trusted me, so kudos to them, but others, _jeeze_ lady. They were lying around or handed out like candy." Stopping, she looked around and then checked her Pip-Boy to be sure that no-one else was in earshot. "You're not doing a very Goddamned good job, considering Zimmer's here."

Victoria crossed her arms, smiling slyly. "He'll never find the android. He could be right under his nose and that little bastard would never even know it."

Cort smiled sweetly back, her words mocking. "Yes well, you pretentious, puffed up ass, even so it's kind of risky to have him so close to _Harkness_, don't you think? What are you trying for, first prize for most inept abolitionists ever?"

Victoria looked like she had been hit with a bat, and suddenly advanced in panicked fury, arms upraised and her hands in fists. Her vitirol was rapidly dampened when Charon lazily walked forward, wordlessly herding her back until the anger in her face had been replaced by what he thought was the appropriate amount of fear. "_How did_...ah, who-who told you."

Cort shrugged and pointed. "He did." She smiled again as the woman goggled at Dogmeat, who puffed up his chest and looked pleased with himself. "Goes bonkers for the smell of them, snuffles around their knees like crazy. Once I found out Zimmer was travelling with an android, it was easy to put two and two together. With that creepy gnome living right next to Harkness, how long do you think it'll take him to figure it out? I bet just as long as it takes him to see some scavenger's dog doing the same Goddamn thing. He might be an arrogant little bigot, but he didn't strike me as a _stupid_ one." She hardened, patience worn entirely too thin. "So, if you're done snarking at me and you don't mind, I have work to do." Amazingly, the woman kept going. _Well, at least you can't fault her dedication. Even if it probably is going to wind up making her dead as a doornail. Cripes, even _I _knew enough starting out to have a soft voice and carry a big gun._

"You really want to help? Take this. It's an internal component for the very android you're searching for. Don't ask how I obtained it." Victoria held out a small, oddly shaped bit of metal and started towards her, then jerked to a halt as Charon made a throaty noise that sounded like nothing else but the growl that it was.

Walking over and trying not to laugh at the veiled amusement she saw on the ghoul's face, Cort plucked it out of her hand, instantly running her fingertips over the uneven surfaces and avidly studying the small contraption. _I wonder what it does. I wonder why he could give it up? Maybe it's like an android appendix_. "I already know how. Told you, you guys were sloppy."

Victoria gripped her temples briefly and kept going, her arrogant, crusading nature subsumed by a simple desire to get the entire affair over with. "Just present it to Zimmer, tell him the android is dead, and that was on the corpse. He'll believe you. Do that and that bastard will go back to the Commonwealth, and leave that poor soul alone. Do that, and you'll have saved a man's life."

Cort shrugged. "I'll consider it."

Victoria snapped at her, brashness resurfacing as Cort again did something not in line with what she expected. "You can't do anything _else_!"

"_Don't_ tell me what I can and can't _do_." Snarling in response to the indignant and commanding tone, Cort fought to keep control of herself and narrowly succeeded. "You want to do something, why don't you go keep an eye on Zimmer. There's no bloody way that I'm the only person he hired." She shook her head, exasperated. "Why the hell don't you just _kill_ him and his personal toaster? That would solve your problem immediately." _Killing him AND you seems like a fantastic solution right now. Christ, my mind aches._

Victoria shook her own head vehemently. "We're in the business of saving people, not killing them, and there's no way any of us could stand up against his bodyguard Armitage. Harkness, yes, if it came to it, but nothing human."

_Pacifists in the Wasteland, what will they think of next. Lady, you are _so_ going to end up dead._ Cort frowned, suddenly wondering when exactly it was that she had decided violence was a viable first option to solve a dispute. A fantastic, _wonderful_ first option. Right now, she wanted to take the option that would get Watts the hell away from her before she blew a bloody hole through the woman, deliberately sliding her hand away from the repeater's trigger even as she excitedly thought about pulling it._ I wonder how big the exit wound would be if I jammed the barrel against her. I wonder who the fuck I am anymore. _"Fine. Look, I'll take the component up to Zimmer when we get back from hunting." She dropped the odd little part into a belt pouch, nastily continuing on in her head. _For Pinkerton, you annoying little shit._ "That suit you?"

"Yes. Thank you. You're doing the right thing." Watching the woman as she spun around and started to run back towards the ramp, not even looking to suss out her surroundings for any potential dangers, Cort shook her head.

"Nice that someone still knows what that is." She closed her eyes in relief as Charon placed a rough hand on the back of her neck, forcibly narrowing her focus down until it was filled with nothing but the feeling of his touch. _I'm having trouble figuring it out anymore._


	16. Waterlogged Woolgathering

_I never, ever want to work this many hours in a week again. Thanks so much for the new reviews and faves on this story and the first one, for those folks just starting out. It's nice to come home after a long night to find them. :)_

_

* * *

_

**The** remaining entrance into Pinkerton's hulk of a lair _was_ on the broken off end; it was also unfortunately several feet under water. Charon was standing at the edge of the shore with Dogmeat as Cort wandered around behind them muttering at her Pip-Boy, both of them looking down apprehensively into the murky surface, hulks of the broken carrier groaning rusty laments to each other on either side. The ghoul glanced over to her as she walked up to flick a booted toe into the water, asking her a question and already resigned to what he knew the answer would be. "Are you fucking sure it's down there? That piece of shit is always fouling up."

"I've been reading the piece of shit for almost a decade. It's underwater, whether you like it or not." Cort shuffled her feet and put on her own apprehensive expression, pulling up one foot to rub at the back of her leg. "We're going to have to leave Dogmeat up here. I'm pretty sure he can dive, but I've never asked him to do it, and I don't want to risk him. It should be safe enough this close to the carrier." Squatting down, she rubbed the dog's ears back and forth. "You hear me? You stay here, baby."

Looking to from the dog to the water and back again, Charon grunted, Dogmeat snorting back at him when Cort let go and looking thoroughly unimpressed. "Lucky mutt."

* * *

**As** a rule, ghouls generally did not like to swim; things in the water that might try to eat them notwithstanding. Irradiated water was fine and sought out for either healing themselves or pure enjoyment, all of them having a compulsive tendency to crouch and flick it over themselves like little cadaverous songbirds when they found particularly brightly glowing puddles, damaged flesh in place of shiny feathers(Cort had observed this on more than one occasion and still lost her shit over it every time. She had forced herself through no small act of will to remain absolutely silent whenever Charon got up to it, finding the behaviour adorably hilarious, keeping the dour mercenary grumbling happily to himself and completely oblivious to the fit she was having as he splashed around). Full immersion however, was a dicey business. For one, soaking for too long had a tendency to swell already damaged skin tissue, and for ghouls in rougher shape, this could result in losing what little they had even faster. Age wasn't so much an issue as how well they had held up; Winthrop or Barrows for instance could have expected to keep all of themselves as intact as Charon did if he had decided to go for an extended jump in the river, even with the vast gap in chronological age; all three of them had flesh that approached the consistency of tanned leather. Patchwork would most likely require Winthrop with a pool skimmer to retrieve anything left, and Barrows with a shitload of sutures if he wanted even a fraction of it back on(as it was, the doctor was already an inch away from telling Quinn to bring him back a staple gun, and barely two from just saying the hell with it and seeing if Wonderglue would work on the shedding drunk; nothing else had aside from the precious thread and it was driving him nuts).

Two, and this was either the more disturbing or attractive thought, depending on how well they had adjusted mentally to looking like a walking corpse, was the fact that they could drown so easily it was damned ridiculous. With no noses to pinch or hold onto a buffering bubble of air, If they ducked under the surface, water potentially had a path straight into their lungs, an H2O mainline of epic proportions. Unless they were swimming with their heads above the surface or facing directly down, managed to seal the ragged hole in their faces, or blowing out a constant stream of air, any ghoul caught underwater was effectively screwed if they panicked or had less than stellar control over their airway. Not having any remaining lipid tissue didn't help either; due to their mutation ramping up their cellular metabolism, one thing you would never see was a fat ghoul, and consequently they sank like a stone without giving a constant effort to keep themselves afloat. Basically, what it all boiled down to, was that a depressed lemming dumped at the edge of the Grand Canyon could have a better expectation of survival than a submerged ghoul.

Neither of these had ever been an issue for Charon. He was, as mentioned, in good condition for what he was, and had no desire whatsoever to end his existence, as much as he tended to loathe himself at times. 'Too mean to die' would not be an inaccurate description; on more than one occasion, the ghoul had lived through horrendous trauma out of nothing but pure spite. He also knew how to swim, having been brutally instructed in the skill along with so many others, and generally settled into a powerful breaststroke whenever he had been required to cross a deep body of water(Cort herself would kick off and swim like the damn dog, something _he_ privately found just plain old hilarious, the acerbic ghoul being completely incapable of finding _anything_ adorable, even if it had to do with her). He was aware of the limitations his denuded face presented, and took any precautions he thought fit to prevent himself from filling up like an empty bottle. Making it to the submerged hatch and through it had therefore been no problem, and he had calmly taken the time to ensure it would remain open if they needed a rapid escape, then proceeded at an efficient but unhurried place until they reached a section where they could both touch bottom. All of this did nothing to aid him when he suddenly found himself stuck flat on his back in water that would normally barely come up to his chest, somehow pinned to a rusted out section of bulkhead with a wound up Mirelurk stomping over him. A wound up Cort tangling up in his legs while _fighting _the Mirelurk didn't help either, and he was forcing himself to remain still to keep from tripping her up any further.

One hand clapped firmly over his face and struggling to retain what little air he had left and the other striving towards where his shotgun had been kicked, he found himself caught between abject fury at the idea of going out like a radroach stuck in a flooded ditch and entrancement at the bizarre tableau playing out before him. Cort had plunged herself under the water to get away from the Mirelurk's claws, which had already injured her somewhere, the water taking on a pinkish hue. Her Pip-Boy light was on and blaring, illuminating the wretched subaquatic world he was trapped in and giving it a wavering, dreamlike quality, the surreality of it aided by the muffled sounds she was making, a dim, thrashing susurrus. His eyes widened as the mutt suddenly appeared out of nowhere, the animal slipping in from the darkness with his legs pistoning so forcefully they sounded like muffled shots going off, bubbles streaming out of his fur and armour and arcing up behind him in trailing whirlpools. Charon looked on raptly as the pair almost danced around the giant crab, both with teeth bared and slashing like fiends as they evaded the plunging claws, Dogmeat with his fangs and Cort with her knife and screwdriver, the makeshift weapon brutally effective against the hardened carapace. She was using them to both wound and propel herself around the monster at the same time, freeing up her legs from doing all the work of moving her, and the water was starting to tint purple from the amount of ichor flooding out of the holes she was punching, mixing in with her blood.

He clenched his other hand into a fist, shotgun momentarily forgotten as he watched her twist and kick off of his shins, shooting herself up out of the water like a tiny Deathclaw to savagely ram both weapons deep into the thing's nasty little face. _That's my girl. Get it back, rip the fuck out of it._ Seeing this through the surface as if he was looking perpetually breaking mirror, he felt something in himself break as one clawed foot shot out in a final spasm, the muffled chatter of its death-rattle dimly floating down. The thrashing in the water stopped and he relaxed, sensing everything was finished as the Mirelurk suddenly bobbed up like a cork, and that Cort was definitely fine considering how triumphantly she was crowing, things going comfortably dark as she screamed and shoved the bulky, floating corpse away. _Turned that fucking light off, good. Keep more of those shits from finding...her..._

_

* * *

_

**Cort** hadn't turned her light off, and it was still on when she found him again, diving under to see how to get him loose. Her priorities shifted momentarily, seeing his face. Bubbles were streaming out in a rush from his slack mouth, and if possible, his eyes looked even more whited out, and she realized they had rolled up in his head. Kicking down and putting her hand over the one he had held over his face to keep it from coming loose, she dug the other under the rim of his chest plating and pressed her lips to his, a reversal of his earlier passion and given with no less desperation on her part. Cort blew in the contents of her lungs and then pushed his mouth closed, waiting while the depleted organs in her chest screamed in protest. _Come on, if air was still coming out water wasn't getting in, right? Come on, please, please PLEASE._ After what felt like hours and was in actuality only a matter of seconds, the ghoul jerked, eyes snapping back into awareness and directly to her. She smiled and held up a hand, only pushing back out of the water when he nodded. Whooping in another deep gulp of air, she went back down and gave it to him, rapidly repeating the motion and using her next to focus on whatever was trapping him. There had been two of the giant crabs, and the first was rapidly put down by a blast from both their guns.

Rushing towards the second Mirelurk, Charon had slipped in the slime on the bottom of the flooded corridor and gone down like a stone, the solid, dense weight of muscle and bone carrying him straight to the bottom. Pushing himself up had hooked his armour to a jagged section of the bulkhead and Cort swore as she found it, then started unbuckling everything she could reach, pausing only to get more air for herself or Charon whenever he tugged at her. Pip-Boy screeching like a drowning vulture, she finally got him loose and pulled, the ghoul instantly grabbing her and hauling her from the water as he stood, shotgun clenched tightly in his other hand. Wading over the humped and slanted decking until they reached a dry area, this one apparently above the outside waterline since the red security lights were still functioning, he deposited her next to Dogmeat, who was gnawing on a chunk of the Mirelurk's face that Cort had dislodged. Collapsing to all fours, Charon made a deep, hurking groan and expelled several small streams of water from his mouth and nose as Cort wrapped an arm over his back.

Coughing and wiping strings of drool off of his face as he finally stopped, he looked over to her blearily and croaked. "So why the fuck are we doing this again?"

Cort shook her head wearily, panting out a reply. "Because I'm a special brand of altruistic _idiot_. Are you okay?" She let a out a shaky sigh when he nodded in between droplet-laden snorts. Losing sight of him and the events following had scared the living daylights out of her, torn between fighting to protect them both and going after him when he didn't resurface. A deep slash across both her arms had decided the matter instantly, seeing as she couldn't go after Charon if she were dead, and she had been enveloped by a surge of blind red fury at the creature that had gotten in her way. "Oh thank crap. You can get your armour and your helmet, I need a Rad-Away before I cook to death." Sliding her arm off of him, she poked at her Pip-Boy, shushing up the grating squeal. _Only 500 and change. Not that bad, actually pretty nice, goodbye cuts and slashes, but who knows how much more water we'll have to slog through_. She looked up as Charon leaned heavily against her, one hand delicately splayed over his ribs.

"That bad you need it right fucking now?" Shuddering, he gave one final, racking cough to clear his throat before continuing in his normal, raspy tone of voice. "Do you need anything else? I know that bastard nailed you at least once."

"No, I'm fine for the moment, pretty hunky-dory physically speaking, but I have to take at least one before we get mov-eep!" She squeaked, suddenly pulled into a tight embrace, which lightened only long enough for her helmet and rifles to be removed before returning to a crush hard enough to make her armour creak.

"Good. I'm still hurt." Alarmed, Cort tried to twist around as he pressed his face into her hair and sighed in relief. Charon using her like an ambulatory aid station was nothing new, was actually something she encouraged for a number of reasons; him flat out stating he was injured without her digging after the information was.

"What, what's hurt?"

Holding her in place against him as she squirmed, he patted at her side to reassure her. "Stop losing your shit, it's just a cracked rib. Aches like a fucking bastard."

"Oh. You want to get back in the water? I'm not that high, and it'll speed things up."

"I am fucking _tired_ of water." Moving his head down, Charon nuzzled behind her ear and sighed again, feeling the radiation from her seeping into him. After last night he was now more than comfortable enough to own up to being injured to her immediately, and since he wanted the comfort from her as much as he always had, he saw no good reason to delay going after it. "I want you to fix it. You and the mutt need a rest anyway."

"Yes. The mutt." Cort turned her attention to Dogmeat, giving him a disapproving glare. Seeing it, the dog let the chunks of half-masticated face fall out of his mouth and pointedly averted his gaze as he shrunk in on himself and whined. "I thought I told you to stay outside." Feeling Charon grin, muscles flexing over the wide jaw against her cheek, she continued on with even more asperity. "And what are you finding so damned amusing?"

The ghoul had already correctly deduced the dog's reasoning behind following them, and felt nothing but a sense of approval. _I would've done the same fucking thing_. "You didn't tell him how _long_ to stay. _Good _mutt."

Deepening her scowl, Cort pointed accusingly at the contrite animal. "Oh Christ, not you _too_. Don't give me that face! I don't care if you've figured out your own loopholes, you _know _you disobeyed..." she trailed off as he made a string of absolutely pathetic noises, scraping a paw over his nose and yowling like he had been shot. "Oh the hell with it. Come here, you're still Momma's best boy." Rump wiggling ecstatically and thumping his tail, Dogmeat instantly creeped over until he was solidly planted in her lap, yipping and mouthing her hands as Charon rubbed his over her stomach. "What the hell am I going to do with both of you. Completely incorrigible. Yeep!" She squeaked again as the dog started slapping his tongue alternately into her face and the ghoul's, for once the latter not objecting to the exuberant ablutions, only squinting slightly at the sloppy onslaught as he rasped in Cort's clipped ear.

"I have suggestions for myself."

Cort suddenly laughed at the absurdity of where she was and what she was doing, finding herself irradiated, covered in stagnant sea water and dog slobber while sitting inside a sopping wet rusted nightmare and wonderfully, ludicrously happy at the same time, sandwiched between her bizarre little family. _This is one of the good things, and thank God and little green apples I have it. I need more good things. _"Yeah, I bet you do. Tell me later, this isn't exactly the place I'd want to explore them."

"No fucking argument from me."

Looking around at the rusted walls and peeling paint as both ghoul and dog pressed into her, she sighed. "Sometimes I really don't know why the hell I'm doing all this. I feel like a piece on some batshit gameboard. What am I doing, really? _Why_? I mean, we've got a house, we've got caps, and making enough for food and ammo isn't _that_ hard, not with dumbass mercs practically giving us spare armour and stuff to sell." Cort sighed again and tugged at Dogmeat's ears, the expression on her face echoing her state of mind; a jumbled hash-up of irritation and honest bafflement. "I mean, why the fuck can't I just settle down and stay put, it would be a hell of a lot safer. I'm already thinking about where to go when we leave town again, for Chrissakes."

Charon rolled his eyes and rested his chin on top of her head, settling himself down to explain something he had figured out the first week he had known her, after hearing her short and for the most part, terminally bland life story. "Because, jackass, you're not made to stay still, and now you know it, even if you're too stunned to see what's right in front of you."

Cort snapped back pertly. "Am not. There is a dog in front of me. There's also a big, gigantic jerk behi-"

She abruptly shut up as he suddenly nipped at her ear, and he filed that eminently useful little tidbit of information away before continuing. "It's not complicated. It wasn't fifty years in a fucking corner, but you spent all of your life in that little shitpot Vault, and now you're out of it. You keep moving because you can't fucking stand the thought of being trapped again, by anything. As much as I bitch about where you drag us off to, neither can I, which is why I know what's driving you." He frowned, thinking about how giddy she still got sometimes at seeing the sky. _ Fuck, at least I got to go outside every few years. She was penned up like an abused Brahmin._

"Oh." She relaxed, finding the explanation acceptable enough for the moment, and her current position still agreeable enough to remain that way for a while, especially when he suddenly returned to resting his head against hers.

"Yes, oh." Charon quietly settled into his own thoughts, absently gratified that he had been able to solve the problem for her. There was more to it than that, the need both of them had to keep moving, but he had decided to refrain from mentioning the fact that half of her problem, maybe _all_ of her problem, if you could call it that, was a deep-seated and insatiable curiosity. Cort _needed_ to know things. Along with a strong survival instinct, it was probably the reason that the soft, clueless Vault dweller she had been was able to get out and not bite the dust immediately, emerging into a hostile, foreign, entirely _alien_ world. It was also the reason she kept going, and he didn't want to do anything to endanger it. If Cort thought it was an uncontrollable compulsion, she would be more willing to keep herself on the move and therefore continue to keep her mind occupied; if she thought it was simply curiosity, she would most likely do something stupid and self sacrificing, like trying to suppress it and staying put in Megaton.

Charon was inordinately familiar with what could happen to you if you were left with nothing to do but think, thoughts and emotions and impulses tangling up into one massive snarl that could leave you feeling like there was a radroach scrabbling around in and eating away at your mind, and was not eager to consider what might happen if she did that to herself. Even if he wouldn't directly admit it to himself, he knew there was something wrong with Cort's mind, and he had had ample opportunity to note that she became happier and steadier -became _saner_- when she was giving chase to some puzzle, no matter if it was idiotic or useful. Charon had had years of brainwashing and indoctrination to forcibly keep him from losing his marbles. With a growing sense of trepidation, he was coming to realize, as Cort had after her breakdown, that all she had was him. Brutally pushing the feeling of unease down, his face hardened. _If she is capable of doing anything for me, then I am more than capable of doing anything she may require, and right now she needs to get the hell out of this rusting slag-heap, you numb fuck._

Reluctantly releasing her and standing up, he gave an experimental series of stretches and pops before bending to root around in one of her belt pouches, hauling out and plopping a fat bag of Rad Away on her thigh. "Right. I'm fine, so jam your puke-juice in and let's get going. I want to get you out of here." Wading back into the water to fish out his armour, he rolled his shoulders uncomfortably, caught between an opposing pair of sensations. The tingle of radiation was pleasant, getting _wet_ again was not. Scowling at his sodden armour as he fished it out, he sloshed back up the deck next to her, crankily dumped it into a heap and then turned his attentions to cleaning out their waterlogged guns. It was most likely an effort in futility, but with his compulsive nature the mere thought of leaving them alone was enough to make what was left of his skin itch. Tipping his shotgun over, he moodily watched water stream out of the drum and barrel. "Fucking tin can better appreciate this shit."

Cort made a face. "Preaching to the choir here." Plucking the bag up with two fingers like it was some unwanted and unidentifiable fossil drawn from the depths of a neglected refrigerator, she winced as the soupy liquid within shifted around turgidly in the low light. "Puke-juice? Cripes, why did you have to call it that. It's orange, why couldn't you just say _orange_ juice. You're just _evil_, is what you are."

"I prefer the term 'fiendish'. 'Diabolical' would also be an adequate substitution."

Snorting amusedly and starting to roll her eyes, she redirected her attention and narrowed them instead as she noticed Dogmeat starting to creep away again, the dog freezing around the vicinity of her knees when he saw his attempt at escape had been foiled. "You get back here, don't think I'm going to let you get out of this, you've been in the water and next to me. We'll be nauseated together. Come here and we'll get you started." Catching Charon glaring at her, she did roll her eyes. "Ugh, fine. Momma first." Slapping the bag on top of her armoured shoulder as Dogmeat grinned at the brief reprieve, she straightened her arm and slipped the needle in, grinding her teeth as her stomach started to roil a moment later. _Harkness, you really _better_ appreciate this._


	17. Out of the Fryer and Into the Footlocker

**Cort** was repeating this sentiment to herself over and over like a preventative mantra after being confronted with Horace Pinkerton's stunningly cordial disposition. _Jesus, he makes Li seem downright fuzzy. At least we didn't have to go through fucking boobytraps_ _for her._ She had briefly considered killing the man after she got what she wanted for that little set of lethal pleasantries, but then decided it wouldn't be very sporting, considering the attempts to blow them apart hadn't been personally motivated. Charon had also been more than pleased to collect the explosives and a combat shotgun for spares, his gratified mutterings helping to dull the spike of incoherent rage.

Standing in Pinkerton's little cave of a lab and listening to him drone on about the slights he perceived Li had piled against him(after only five minutes, Cort was positive that his ousting from the Rivet City Council and losing his staff had little to do with the Purifier and _lots_ to do with them seeing a convenient way to give the prickly old goat the heave-ho), she decided to tune out until something relevant tumbled out of his mouth and mull over how they had arrived in such pleasant and storied company until he wound down from his current diatribe. Thinking about getting a gut full of buckshot was more agreeable than the verbal glass getting blasted into her ears.

The way itself hadn't been hard after the Mirelurks and Charon's near-drowning. Going over more lumped decking and up surprisingly well-maintained stairs, they had moved into corridors of a similar condition, marred by random clutter but obviously cleaner than Rivet City itself even in the dim red security lighting. What _had_ been hard was arriving to the lab entrance in one piece, the crotchety bastard apparently being a virtuoso in improvised traps. Not for the first time, Charon had kept her from becoming human lunchmeat, and the new bruises on her rear attested to the fact that he had had to move fast to counteract her blind stupidity at being distracted by particularly alluring piles of the aforementioned clutter, which she belatedly realized had actually been bait. _Well_, she amended later, _not so much realized as blisteringly scolded into awareness by a fussy, oversized ghoul. Mother hen._

Coming into the lab proper, she had been entranced. Two floors of computers and medical equipment, modern and arcane diagrams, and all sorts of paraphernalia she didn't recognize or had only seen in books. Looking around, she had spotted a figure back in the gloom, assault rifle slung over his back and dressed in a battered sweatshirt and jeans so worn they had faded to a nondescript beige, the close-cropped hair on his head matching it. Absorbed in some minutia at the wall terminal in front of him, she cleared her throat to give advance warning and walked over carefully. "Hello, are you Doctor Pinkerton? M-"

Cort's polite greeting had been cut off almost instantly by the old man as he irritatedly struck a key and spun around, snapping in what had turned out to be a surprisingly strong voice, given his wrinkled appearance.

"How the hell did you get in here?" Her mouth still hanging open on the 'My name is' she had been trying to deliver, he crossed his arms and grunted as her expression shifted into what was either astonishment or indignation. "Hmph. I suppose you can't be all that bad if you made it this far without dying. And a ghoul with you, hah. Haven't seen one of you poor bastards since that barber was run off a while back." Pinkerton fixed the larger man with a gimlet eye. "Don't slough anything off in here, I just swept."

Charon gave a withering stare in response and settled in to wait for Cort to finish as the old scientist redirected his attention towards her, happy all over again that she didn't expect him to engage himself in any conversations with others. After that set of complimentary salutations and a few short exchanges, the pair yapping over each other like terriers wanting to piss on the same pole, things had gone rather downhill. Pinkerton hated Li. Loathed her. Wished that giant ants would lay eggs in her orifices, the amount of insectile ova increasing depending on the private nature of the bodily entrance. He had moved onto bloatfly larva when Cort finally started to get the upper hand, managing to shove a few words out unimpeded when Pinkerton paused to suck in a breath.

"So, right, about _why _I'm he-"

"All this was started by me and other sensible, hardworking folks, not that damned snooty bitch."

Cort tried making her speech all one word. "Seethere'sthisandroidandIneedtoknow-"

"That witch ruined my life, all because of some worthless pipe dream. Get it? Pipe dream? I made a joke, girlie, just like that damn Purifier." Desiring a response this time, he allowed Cort to get a little farther before cutting her off again, blithely unaware of the potential hornet's nest he was kicking.

"Project Purity wasn't a pipe dream. It would have worked, if the Encla-"

Pinkerton rambled on, oblivious to the line forming between Cort's eyebrows(Charon, being eminently familiar with it, unobtrusively started shifting into a better firing position. He was almost certain he wouldn't need to paste the old fart, but God only knew what would happen if he continued keeping her from getting her own mouth into gear, especially with the subject matter he had latched onto). "It was a ludicrous idea, destined for failure. Li infected the rest of my staff with her silly fantasy."

_That's it, thats ENOUGH_. Taking a deep breath, Cort raised her voice to a near bellow, finally getting an entire sentence out when he blinked at the sudden volume. "It was my _parents' _idea, and it's not a fantasy. My father discovered how to make it work."

"Oh? Then why precisely are we still floating our asses in irradiated H2O? Didn't use enough magic pixie dust?"

"You don't pay attention to the outside much, do you. The Enclave invaded, seized the Jefferson. My father killed himself to prevent them from controlling the Purifier." Cort blinked rapidly, her eyes feeling far too hot. "That sound like it was just a fucking _pipe dream_ to you?"

Pinkerton, looking uncomfortable and clearly not liking the feeling, unsurprisingly focused on the one thing that affected himself the most instead of what Cort was primarily angry about. "The Enclave are here?"

"Wha-they're all over the fucking place, they have been for more than a month! The whole Goddamned Capital Wasteland." Cort grabbed the back of her helmet in frustration. "Don't you ever listen to the fucking radio?" It's on there, it has to be on there, everything _else_ is." She paused. "At least I think." Belatedly, she realized it had been weeks since she had tuned into either one or the other of the only two stations left, hating the source of both of them so much she didn't want to be reminded of their existence.

"Why would I listen to that mindless drivel?" He flicked a hand at her dismissively. "Well, no matter, no matter. They won't find me in here. Wait. How the hell did you find me in here? If you're looking for that android fellow, you came on purpose."

Still angry over his slights against Project Purity, no matter if she hated _that_ more than anything, Cort disseminated. "I'm sorry, I can't tell you that."

"Suddenly I can't remember anything about that android. Horrible thing, senility."

Cort considered, realized she hadn't told Bonny she wouldn't tell, and shrugged. _ Fuck it, she threw dud grenades at me. _"It was Belle Bonny."

Pinkerton looked startled, then changed it rapidly into something that was almost respectful. "Well, I'd be pissed, but if you got that dry old besom to open her clam, you must've done something impressive. Now, what would you like to know?"

Keeping an eye on him, Cort carefully told him what she wanted, preparing to shout if his lips did so much as even twitch before she was finished. "I would like to know how to make the android remember who he was. There is someone here from the Commonwealth, and I don't think it'll be too long before they figure out what his new identity is."

"Oh. Well fine. I can't let all my good work go to waste, as pleasant as it would be for some of those Commonwealth goons to get knocked down a few pegs." He puffed up, not unlike a skinny toad. "I'm the only one in the Wasteland skilled enough to have done the work."

Pinkerton fell into an unsurprisingly long-winded explanation of what he had done, and gave Cort the activation code that would force Harkness' wiped memory to the surface. Piling the erstwhile android's last recording and picture into her Pip-Boy's memory(she was of the opinion that his new face was a definite improvement), she turned to ask one more question that had been bothering her since she had figured out just how much of a self-absorbed asshole the old man was.

"So why did you help him? Awfully nice of you."

Pinkerton snorted. "Why do you think? I wanted to crack that Commonwealth can opener and see what was inside. There's stuff in there I've only heard about, and even then I didn't believe it. I can see why that Zimmer feller wanted him back so bad."

Hearing thoughts she had personally had about Harkness spoken out loud and more than a little sicked out by that, Cort decided she had had enough of Pinkerton's company to last her a lifetime. "Right. We'll be going."

He nodded and turned back to his terminal, dismissing them immediately. "Good. Don't come back."

Slamming the door to the lab, Cort flipped up her Pip-Boy and quit the bow section as quickly as possible, again relying on Charon to keep her from doing anything stupid as she barrelled towards the door on the side of the hulk, deciding the ammo and explosives piled up near it were adequate compensation for the lovely swim they had all had to endure. Easily unlocking the door from the inside, she kicked it open with a bang after they had stuffed any available room left in their pouches, striding out onto the rickety pier and into the late evening air. "Stars. I love stars. I ever tell you I love stars?"

Charon, resignedly looking for anything hostile she may have attracted with the noisy fit of pique, grunted non-commitally. "Tell me after we're finished dealing with this foolishness. Talking to the tin can next?"

"No. I think we can take the time to get changed first, in fact, I _know_ we can." Cort grimaced and writched uncomfortably, flushing when he raised a questioning eyebrow at the odd movement. "Ah. I'm pretty sure there's river algae in my undies."

* * *

**Returning **to the Science Lab was a repetition of their earlier exit, rabbity faces of the residents peeking out or darting around corridors, and Cort was suddenly tired of them all; not just the citizens of Rivet City, but people as a whole. Even hearing Vera squawking away about the heap formerly known as Mister Buckingham didn't improve her misanthropic mood, seeing as she was directing it at Henry Young, a dark-haired mechanic in blue coveralls that Cort could always recall as having been pleasant to her. The security guard that was normally stationed in the corridor was a trapped in place by the pair, looking like she had already endured her own slew of nattering, if her exasperated face was any indication. _That's what I get for being petty. It turns around and bites someone in the ass._ Something her father once told her came back to her, thinking about what poor Henry was going through._ 'You can do absolutely anything you want to Cort, as long as you think that you can. The only thing you need to figure out is whether or not you can accept the consequences of your actions thereafter.'_

Hearing the shrewish hotelier's screeching floating down the hall as they continued, the sound travelling an impressive distance before petering out, she wasn't sure if it had been worth it, but rapidly changed her mind when she noticed yet another sneering countenance filled with a mix of thinly veiled fear and disgust pointing its nose in their general direction. _Why do I care about what happens to any of these bastards. They don't care about me._ Coming up next to him(some nameless Wastelander she didn't know and suddenly didn't care to know, everyone starting to blur together facelessly, and wasn't _that_ a relief), Cort lunged towards them like an ill-tempered cur, snapping her teeth together with a short click and sneering herself when they jerked back in startled fright. She had made it close enough to for their surprised expulsion of breath to mist up the front of her visor. "You want to keep that intrusive snot-pocket on your face, I suggest you point it somewhere _else_." Door slamming in her face, she lashed out a foot and kicked at it, the metal giving out a dull boom. "That's right, you little shit, back in your hidey-hole."

Charon blinked. For once, she had managed to move without giving him any visible warning beforehand, just flashed out like a spurt of heat lightning, and what was much less impressive and a lot more disturbing was her target. It had been an unarmed, unaggressive Wastelander, and they had provoked her with nothing more than a dirty look. Genuinely alarmed, he placed a hand on the back of her neck and gently but forcibly steered her away from the door and down the hall. "Let it _alone_, Cort. They're not worth it."

Feeling the earlier sensation of being suffocated crashing back on her even worse than before, Cort sped up, her voice coming out choked. "No, they're not, are they."

Stopping in front of the main door to the Lab, he grabbed her chin and tilted her head up to examine her closely after she had unlocked it, privately relieved when he saw how wet her eyes were, a heartbeat from brimming over. It wasn't good, but it wasn't what he had been dreading, that expressionless blanked-out look that was showing up far too often. Right now all she was was sad, very lost, and looking far, far too young. Cort staying remarkably still for him, he took advantage of the opportunity to examine her for anything else that disturbed him, any sign that she was slipping.

He would have been disgusted to learn that his ability to read Cort's face was due to the same reason that Gob was adept at it; years with abusive employers had given him a heightened awareness of what they could potentially be planning to do to him, or to be more accurate, _make_ him do, picking up on their moods like a kicked dog(not that any had actually dared to kick him -well, there had been that Psycho-addicted merchant, but he wasn't going to be using that foot again anytime soon, or anything else for that matter- but some of the more sadistic and intelligent ones had gotten awfully inventive). Gob had intuitively known that Cort wasn't going to retaliate for accidentally colliding with her after calming himself down, just as Charon knew her behaviour was skewing beyond what her normal eccentricities could explain, and had been since she had woken up, even as hard as he was trying to deny it. It was getting harder to every day. "Cort?"

Seeing him stare at her with the worried, thoughtful expression that was showing up far too often on his face, she blurted out an apology. "I'm sorry. I don't like it here." The expression lightened but didn't leave, and she was caught between dread and relief. _Don't let him know, if he knows I can't pretend, but if he knows, then I don't have to, and I'm so tired. I'm so very tired_. "I _really_ don't like it here."

"Then it's a very good thing we're leaving after we finish with Harkness, isn't it."

"Yes." She nodded her head and snuffled, pushing her visor up and wiping her nose on the back of her right hand before forcing herself to perk up visibly. "I'm fine, I'm just cranky. Head's still fuzzy and that crabapple Pinkerton didn't help any."

"Well then let's get changed, _again_, and get the fuck out of this shithole." He nudged her, carefully making himself appear unconcerned as she tried to do the same; if he kept looking worried while she was trying to pull one over on him, he knew she would shutter herself up even harder. If he was going to eventually accept that there was something new wrong with her, and he _wasn't_, because nothing _was_ wrong, at fucking _all_, he had to make sure she was off her guard enough to stop hiding it and give himself a tactical advantage. Just in case. _I can win a battle, but the war's never over, is it. Fuck_. "Go on, you look like a drowned molerat."

"Oh, gee, _thanks_. I still have more hair." Clattering down the stairs and shouldering through Li's door, Cort headed for the bed, thought better of it when she realized she was still soaked, then shrugged and sat down anyway when Dogmeat jumped up on it, showing no qualms over filling the bed with salt and muck. _What the hell, she's not going to be back here again any time soon anyway_. She smiled slightly, dropping down next to him as Charon crouched over his pack. _Besides, I can blame it on the dog._

"Cort."

Looking up instantly at his odd tone of voice, she saw him frozen in place, spare shirt in his hand and a queer, thoughtful look on his face as he stared at it. "What? What is it?"

"Did you dig around in here looking for booze?"

Cort pushed the heels of her hands into her eyes and rubbed at them, sounding testy. "_No_. I knew you didn't have any."

"Nothing in here is where I put it. If it wasn't you, someone else has been through my pack." He frowned, remembering how she had just pushed through the second door. "Li's door was open. You locked both when we left, didn't you."

Shooting up like she had just received an electrical shock, Cort grabbed her pack and upended it, her earlier distress entirely forgotten as she babbled. "Yes, you know I did, you reminded me. Oh fuck, oh Christ, oh _biscuits_." Flinging bits of clothing, scrap, assorted foodstuffs and magazines, she kept up a running litany of things as she tallied their presence. Reaching her holotapes and disks, she quickly read the labels, relaxing visibly and slowing down slightly when she pulled out the pile related to James and Project Purity, hugging the little plastic squares briefly. "He's still here, I have still have them." Setting them aside, she dove back into her conglomeration of belongings, slowing down almost immediately and giving him a grim look. "I don't have Harkness. All my android tapes are gone. It had to be Victoria or Zimmer, and I know where to find Zimmer." Cort grabbed her repeater and started running, Charon and Dogmeat hot on her heels.

* * *

**Vera** was thankfully still tying up the security guard's attention over the corpse of Mister Buckingham, and anyone who might have dared a peek at Cort and her companions had decided discretion was the most prudent course of action with the way she had acted on the way back down to the Science Lab. With Charon behind her scanning the hallway and acting like a screen, she furtively picked the lock to Zimmer's rented quarters and entered them, immediately breaking into the footlocker that was set close by the door once she had confirmed the room was empty. Flipping up the lid, her little sound of triumph was cut off by a gulp as her face paled, and she spoke in a too-high, breathy voice.

"Oh, sweet crippity _craaap_, I don't think it was Victoria."

"Why? Find them in there?"

"Nooo, it's because, ah, because Victoria's... oh God, I should have been _nicer_ to her...she's..." Charon shifted further away from the door, finally getting a good look at the contents of the footlocker, including what she was cringing away from.

"She's a meat pretzel."

Cort swallowed noisily and slammed the lid shut. She had seen an outrageous amount of gore during her time topside, had obtained a medically inclined background while still underground, and every raider or Super Mutant encampment she went through had further immured her against the limitless bounty of the inventive things that could be done to the human body, but somehow looking at Victoria brought her sensibilities back to square one. The woman _was_ a pretzel, jammed into every available space in the narrow metal box, eyes bulging so grotesquely it was a wonder they hadn't popped out. Reviewing the brief glimpse she had gotten at those and the froth on her lips, it was obvious she had been rammed into it alive and recently; the spit on the lid had instantly started running down when she opened it. Cort didn't know what was worse, knowing that or seeing how her bones had shifted and broken under the skin, which was perfectly, horrifyingly intact, and for the first time in months she started hiccuping. _Something, that, that _thing_ Armitage crumpled her up like a damned bendy straw. Oh Jesus, I never want to see anything like that ever again_. "Yes, thank you for that wonderful summarization of what I'm looking at. It's helping me a lot."

"You're welcome. What now?" Looking into the hallway, he absently spoke back over his shoulder, trying to keep an eye on both ends of the corridor at the same time. He had no intention of letting anything capable of knotting a person up like that within thirty feet of Cort if he could help it, even if it meant going after them bare-handed. Buckshot worked fine for people and robots, sure, but who knew what was inside the tin cans? Pinkerton had been impressed, and while an arrogant blowhard, the man hadn't struck him as stupid. Charon moved his attention back in the other direction as Cort turned a final hic into a nervous bark. _Come on and pop on out, you fucking toaster, and we'll see who's the bigger bastard_.

"Now we find my holotapes, _fast_, just in case they haven't listened to them yet, and then get to Harkness even faster. Vic-Victoria probably gave up his name. They don't need to find the people on the tapes, too, and I bet that sadistic animatronic..._thing_ is real good at recognizing voices." Cort swallowed again, other possible details that might have been wrung from the woman tumbling out of her imagination. _If she gave up his name, she probably gave up information about the Railroad, and they might just go on a little Capital Wasteland tour to mop up, listening and finding, Armitage with Harkness to help, back being a good little soldier. Oh, _Christ. _They'd end up in Underworld_. Pushing up, she looked around the room, half-frantic and wondering where the hell to start. "Help me toss this place, quick!"

Charon shrugged, having spotted the little cartridges a few moments ago. "Don't have to. They're in the bottom of the footlocker."

"Oh. Bis_-hic!-_cuits."


	18. Does Harkness Dream of Electric Sheep?

_Thanks for the new reviews and favs folks, and welcome back, Loki!_

* * *

**Cort **was tearing through the carrier with Charon beside her, both of them a heartbeat behind Dogmeat, the animal going at a full lope. She had told him to find Harkness, narrowly placing that objective over killing Zimmer first._ I already know where Zimmer's going anyway, straight to him. And if I can get there first...I don't know, hide him, disguise him, stick him a Goddamned dress, anything_. Seeing the turns Dogmeat was taking, at points kicking off the sides of the corridors to keep up his momentum around the corners, his claws squealing against the metal, she figured out where he was going before they were even halfway there and blurted it out in a pant. "Market...he's in the Marketplace!"

"Oh that just fucking figures." Charon glanced over to her, annoyingly running without any seeming difficulty. "We've got at least two security guards on our tail."

"Good, we'll need...need all the help we can get. Keep...guns away, otherwise they'll just start shooting." Dogmeat slid to a halt in front of the last door, barking wildly. Grabbing the latch, Cort kicked it open, and proceeded to raise her reputation onboard to legendary status. "There he is, at the far end. _Harkness_!"

* * *

**Everything** following was almost a blur in the memories of almost everyone present. For whatever reason, psychological or physiological, Harkness was able to play back the events of the evening to himself in precise detail for the rest of his life; he could never really make any _sense_ of them, but they were there if he chose to look. The Vault kid had come flying through the door like a bat out of hell yelling for him, and he sorely didn't need any more problems from the girl and her companions. He had considered throwing them off the ship after the incident in the Muddy Rudder, and might have if not for her favourable association with Li and the fact that she had been injured and not at fault(an irate, addled mercenary with a scattergun had also tipped the scales towards dealing with it later, and he had had his hands full as it was). Bonny was many things, including an enormous thorn in his side, but she had too much self-respect or disdain for others, possibly _both_, to lie about anything when she decided to speak.

He hoped whatever it was wasn't going to take too long. The Marketplace was shutting down for the evening, Doctor Zimmer had just shown up to get his attention, his lump of a bodyguard behind him, and he still had to figure out how to cut Ollie and Jonah loose. Ollie wasn't a problem, but with the way Jonah was, he was pretty sure Ollie needed a head start. Once he had regained consciousness, he had spent the entire evening and the following day in the brig giving his brother a piece of his mind, dressing him down and insulting his ancestry(Harkness was pretty sure Ollie was smart enough to see the issue with that, both of them being _of_ the same issue, but was just too spitting mad to care). Harkness also needed the girl and the ghoul the hell away from the ship before he did _anything_, since he knew she would leave immediately for her next destination. If they ran into each other _later_, well. Whatever happened outside the city wasn't his problem, but he didn't need a gunfight right on the entrance ramp if Jonah, the river-rotted idiot, decided to stick around and try to get revenge for Duncan if he was set loose first.

Harkness sighed and held up a hand to Zimmer as he trotted nearer, redirecting all of his attention towards the Vault kid. Whatever the old man from the Commonwealth wanted would have to wait until he had sorted out the trouble barrelling towards him.

"Mister Harkness, I really only need to tell you one thing. It won't take but a minute, I assure you!"

He spared an irritated glance for the elderly doctor, wondering when exactly he was finally going to finish his ridiculous search for a non-existent android. It had been months since he had arrived with his unsettling bodyguard, the stoic man following him on the rare occasions he decided to emerge from his hotel room to pester any newcomers, and he was ready for both of them to get the hell off of his ship. "Chief Harkness, if you please."

The kid yelled from halfway down the stairs. "Get away from him you creepy little bastard!"

Harkness blinked and looked harder at the her. She was in a damned froth, wild-eyed and keyed up to hell. She was also bee-lining it for Zimmer. "Miss? I would sure like for you to tell me what you think you're doing." He glanced over to the old doctor as he reached out and tugged at his sleeve. Harkness suppressed a shudder. Damned if he didn't like the fellow touching him, and it was all he could do to keep from wrenching his arm away as the man creaked out some sort of gobbledygook at him, the kid yelling over top before he had gotten a couple words into it.

"Activate A3-21-"

"Dogmeat, sic 'em, _shut him up_!"

Dogmeat surged forward and leapt for the old man's face as Harkness winced and shook his head, intending to rip his jaw loose. Zimmer gave out a cry like a strangled chicken, and the dog snarled, happy that his target had just made it easier before he was suddenly spinning through the air. By virtue of being silent, nearly everyone had forgotten Armitage, and the android had moved in an instant, one hand snapping out and propelling the dog towards the back of the Marketplace. He might have simply crushed the animal's head into a pulp if not for the necessity of dealing with what was coming after it. Cort had taken the opportunity to streak past him and smartly driven one fist into Zimmer's throat before Armitage spun and slammed a hand into her chest. Eyes wide, she managed a belated slap at his side before she was shooting back in a rising arc towards Potomac Attire, dozens of gape-mouthed faces following her impressive progress before snapping back to Armitage in something approaching awed terror.

Dogmeat was stopped from impact by Seagrave Holmes, who ran around yelling "_I got him, I got him_!" before he caught the yelping animal and sat down smartly on his arse, arms full of wailing, sneezing dog. Bannon was not quite so chivalrous in the matter of Cort, and all she got was a hard landing across his countertop as he dove out of the way. She slid to the end of the wooden expanse, scissors, thread and various bits of tailor-related detritus skipping off like stones on a pond in her wake, crashed into the cash register with a musical jangling and then tipped off into a thoroughly ungraceful heap, taking a mannequin down with her. Charon made it beside her an instant later, passing Bannon quitting his own premises almost as quickly as Cort had entered them.

Harkness, caught between several impulses, the one in the forefront a need to put down the damned bodyguard before he could launch anything else into orbit, was about to wade into the mess before it got any worse when that distasteful touch was back on him, Zimmer holding on for all he was worth and dragging like a dead weight. This time Harkness did jerk his arm. He wasn't sure why the kid was so dead-set on killing the oldster, it was reprehensible behaviour out of someone he had thought better of, but right now it seemed a whole lot more logical, feeling those dry hands on his skin, ancient blunt nails digging into it. He stared at Zimmer when he gripped harder and spoke up, stunned that he was still trying to tell him whatever nonsense he had come in after. Harkness started pulling his arm harder. He didn't _want_ to hear whatever it was, what he had heard already had made his head ache like a bastard.

"Ac'vat'A3-twent...violet!"

Harkness shook his head in disbelief at the gibberish. There was no way he needed this. It was a wonder anyone else hadn't been hurt yet, the residents standing around like molerats caught in a bright light, including his own security staff, both of whom had frozen -and no, make that four, there were two staring down like stunned twits from the entrance door- with their mouths open once assorted mammals had started going airborne. The elderly limpet attached to his arm wasn't helping their mental jag either._ I have to get this sorted before anything else goes to hell. Everyone's turned into a damned psych_o_path or a complete dope_. He started prying the man's hand loose, when the other person caught up in this little tableau, the only person who _hadn't_ forgotten Armitage and only hadn't been forgotten himself by virtue of being a walking nightmare, invested himself fully in the proceedings.

* * *

**Stuck** in a completely inadequate position to prevent it, Charon had started running for the clothing stall before the android's insanely forceful punch had left her chest, determining where Cort would land but not quite making it in time to prevent the impact. He was pulling debris off of her an instant after it had settled, cursing himself for not insisting he go in front. _Too used to follow the leader, you useless fuck. Next time, next time, fuck there better _be _a next time. Fucking batshit tin cans._ To his immeasurable relief, he found there was going to be a next time. Moving the busted cash register produced a pair of infuriated grey eyes staring out of an equally angry and completely, utterly _offended_ face set behind a badly scratched visor and a scattering of disgorged caps. Cort glared up at him.

"He _threw_ me. Like a tiddlywink."

Charon felt himself settle slightly as she snarked. If she was calm and pissed off, she wasn't hurt too badly. He nodded. "Yes."

Cort winced, pushed her visor up and narrowed her eyes, scattering money everywhere. "He threw my _dog_."

"Yes."

She grinned and then winced again as she shifted, pulling her other arm out and making the broken ablative plates on her chest grind together. In her hand was Armitage's laser pistol. "I got his gun before I went airborne. Now he doesn't have a gun."

Charon looked up over the counter. The android was focused on the security personnel who had finally decided to join the party, and was just noticing the deficiency she was responsible for as they grouped together. He returned his attention to her, grinning back in approval. "No, Cort. He doesn't."

"Kill him for me." Trying to push up, she let out a pained wheeze as he helped her to sit, her voice coming out in savage gasps. "Charon, I order you to kill him. Break him up like Victoria. Make him pay."

Charon gave her a grimace that was half smile and half snarl, feeling a warm flush spread through him at her words. He had blown apart countless people for her before doing his duty, but this was different, an order to kill. A _direct _order to kill, his first direct order to kill from _her_, and he was going to enjoy every second of it. He hadn't even noticed how much he had missed that, receiving a command to annihilate a target in those words, until it had finally happened again. They were beautiful coming out of her. This was perfect. This was what he was made for. "_Yes_, Cort. As you wish."

Standing up, the ghoul's head swiveled like it was set on casters, chalky eyes fixing on Armitage and his face blanking out. The android was still focusing on the security guards, who had begun to move forward when Harkness started trying to literally shake Zimmer off of his arm. Charon instantly took advantage of the opportunity presented when one of the made the mistake of darting forward, and the following chaos when the crunch of the poor woman's neck cleared out everyone else in the Marketplace, the pulpy sound shattering the group paralysis they had been afflicted with since the bizarre event started happening.

* * *

**While** trained well enough in small arms, the guards had also been trained not to fire willy-nilly at targets, accidents being all too easy in a crowded city made up of narrow hallways, sharp corners, and surfaces that would make a slug ricochet beautifully. Since the crowd here was divesting themselves of the area and one of their coworkers had just been neatly pinched out of existence, they had found a wonderfully clear amount of focus and raised their pistols. They might have shortened the entire affair if not for the inconvenient interruption provided by their colleague's still-twitching corpse crashing into them.

Satisfied he had neutralized the threat for the moment, Armitage was turning back to Harkness and Zimmer when Charon drove one hard fist soundly into his temple. The horrified shrieks of three nervy security guards had made for excellent cover for the last few feet of approach, for both the ghoul and the dog.

* * *

**Dogmeat **had streaked back towards his target as soon as he had been able to stop wheezing, Holmes dropping him to the deck when everyone else had scattered. Right now he was being held in place by Harkness, snapping and slavering towards Zimmer, who had finally let go of him when the furred terror had reappeared. The Chief had both arms locked around the dog, one around his armoured chest and the other around his neck, and absently decided that the strange clothing was the only thing that had prevented the animal's ribs from being caved in. It was also the only thing letting him keep a hold on the twisting mass. He had considered breaking the dog's neck after nearly losing his grip, but for the life of him couldn't bring himself to do it; and for some unfathomable reason, the longer he looked at Zimmer, the more he wanted to let the damn dog _go_.

* * *

**Armitage** swiveled his own head to look for his new assailant, having only staggered from the blow he received. The ghoul was standing a few paces away, shaking his hand out of a fist and eyeing him speculatively, rapidly moving into a defensive stance as he turned to face him. Leaning abruptly, the android tried to snatch up one of the guards' scattered pistols before he was snapped in the face again, this time by a kick, one so light it seemed pathetic, achieving nothing but to bring his attention entirely back on the rotting heap. If he had been capable of loathing, and he certainly _wasn't_ afflicted with something so debasing as emotion, the android thought he would have felt it any time he had to look at a ghoul. The normal humans down here were disgusting enough, breathing, shitting, shedding hair and skin everywhere in piles of rust and rock. At least back north, they had a seeming pride in keeping themselves clean, removing contaminants, and being around them wasn't nearly as offensive..._yet_. This _thing_, though. He thought it was possibly an anathema to the perfection that he himself was.

"I'm going to snap your neck like a twig." The ghoul said nothing, just continued to smoothly weave back and forth in response to his own movements, face completely void of anything. The android felt a small twinge of unease. Threats had generally always brought some kind of predictable and exploitable response from human targets, and what this was had once been human. He had killed ghouls coming down from the Commonwealth, and _they_ had reacted, usually even more cravenly than humans, begging for their sad existence to continue, almost desperate for it. This man seemed like he was already dead.

Armitage darted forward, intending to crush his offensive adversary into a pulp and get back to his master so they could retrieve the traitor and finally get back, get _clean_, and equally fast the ghoul slipped to the side, abhorrent hands on the back of his vest spinning him back the way he had come. Skidding to a halt, he turned, and if he had been capable of boggling, would have. The corpse had a hand held up, index finger ticking infuriatingly back and forth as if he was scolding an unruly child, his face still maddeningly empty. Armitage's feeling of unease increased, along with a surge of outrage at being touched yet again. He was also starting to get the sneaking suspicion he was being toyed with.

"I'm going to break you into pieces." A flurry of movements, a few quick strikes, and the ghoul's hand connected with his face in a darting, open-handed slap before the hulk almost danced away again. Armitage raised one of his own, unable to keep himself from scrubbing his palm against his cheek. "I'm going to rip that hand _off_." The only thing he had to figure out was how to get hold of the hand. The thing was fast, but couldn't be faster than he was, would stop getting lucky, would get_ tired_, and once he got a grip, a grip of disgusting flesh in his hand...against his will, he swiped at his face again. "Rip _both_ of them off."

The ghoul still said nothing, but now looked like he was processing some bit of information, his eyebrows scrunching the merest of tics inward. Armitage considered that it might mean his threats were finally getting through, that the thing had realized what it was dealing with when his expression changing from a blank, ragged slate to something disturbing. The ghoul looked amused, amused at _him_, and then it got even worse. The ghoul was actually _laughing_, rusty, scraping chuckles grating over his sensitive ears and driving him over the edge.

"I'm going to fucking _extermina_-" He lunged, lighting quick, and felt a short, sweet burst of what might have been satisfaction as the ghoul didn't move quickly enough to get out of the way this time, confident that he had gotten the drop on his inferior opponent. It rapidly departed when he somehow suddenly found himself hitting the floor after another blinding flash of patchy skin and black armour, arms held up behind his back in a leathery, iron grip and a booted foot on the back of his skull, a rasping voice now devoid of emotion speaking out from above.

"You talk too much." His arms were twisted harder, coming out of the sockets with a muffled pop, and Armitage screamed in programmed reflex. The ghoul continued blandly on, once the noise tearing out of him had petered out. "Over-confident. Poor impulse control. Easy to provoke." He felt the boot press as the leg behind it flexed, detaching his head from the bones anchoring it to his shoulders as the creature continued to talk. "You were disappointing, inferior, and sloppy. Substandard. Pathetic."

_No, I'm perfection, made to be perfection-_ Armitage went out like an over-engineered light bulb, a small puff of air and given no real notice by the world in general. He would have been horrified to know that he had left a mess, if he was capable of feeling it.

* * *

**Dogmeat** had had enough of being pinned, and twisted far enough to snap his fangs at Harkness, snipping them so close to the man's nose that the smooth edge of one of them brushed against one nostril. Letting out a startled bellow, the man finally let him go and Dogmeat kicked off the floor and up at the same time Charon was dislocating the other android's arms. Landing on Zimmer's chest, he finally took off the bottom of his wrinkled face as Cort collapsed into the space he had vacated and grabbed Harkness, wheezing into his.

"Activate A3-21 Recall Code Violet! ..._Man_, that sounds dorky out loud."


	19. Unexpected Corners

_Thanks for the new reviews and watches peeps! And thank you to all you silent readers. I see you on my traffic page. ;)  
_

* * *

**Harkness** screamed in Cort's face, jerking up like he had been shot. Cort screamed back into his and pushed away, startled. Both hit the deck with a thump, him to his knees and her soundly onto her rear, backpedaling madly with her feet. Coming up against a solid obstacle, Cort leaned back against Charon's legs where he had quickly and prudently placed them for her to do so, then just sat blinking stupidly and staring at Harkness while he clutched his head and moaned.

"Ah-oh. Charon, I think we broke him."

"What do you mean, _'we'_." Reaching down, he grabbed the back of her armour and pulled her up in one smooth motion, and she staggered to the side finding her feet again, something that was made significantly easier when she found herself caught up in three pairs of sweaty hands. The remaining guards, after having finally disentangled from their unfortunate comrade and finding their wits, had decided that some sort of action on their part would be prudent. Determining that perhaps going for the bigger or the fanged target was unwise, they made the terminally stunned mistake of going for the middle option.

Too tired out and sore to do anything else, Cort snorted and stood there with her shoulders slumped, waiting for them to realize just what they had bitten off, and who was going to promptly make them choke on it. "What, so _now_ you kids decide to pitch in? Horse has already left, no point in closing the barn door."

Charon, his face a cross between exasperated annoyance and murderous fury, began moving towards them, clenching his hands and swearing. Harkness barked out an order from the floor as all three suddenly and ineffectually started trying to hide behind their detainee, their eyes locked on the ghoul and batting at each other in an attempt to jockey for the most favourable position, not quite realizing yet that there wasn't one.

"Let her go, don't set him off again! Besides, they'll behave if we ask her nicely, won't they." He turned to face Cort as she was suddenly released, shaking his head briskly to clear it before he stood up.

"Yes, we will." Shooting a dirty glance over her shoulder at the guards, Cort stuck her tongue out before turning back to Harkness with a hopeful look on her face, Charon immediately straightening up and relaxing. "You understand now? Oh Christ on a cracker, tell me you understand now."

"I do." Harkness raised his voice for the benefit of his rattled guards, wanting to make sure his words percolated through to the glassy-eyed nitwits. "Zimmer and his ape were trying to kill me, and I'll explain it to you later. For now, go start on damage control. The whole damn city is probably in an uproar. _Don't_ let anyone in here." Watching them scatter, each snapping off a relieved 'sir, yessir' so fast it was a slur, he shook his head again slowly, not stopping and not speaking again until they had left the Marketplace. "Alright Miss, you've done this to me, and seeing him, recognizing _him_..." Harkness looked at Zimmer's cooling corpse on the floor, mouth twisting in disgust before bringing his eyes back to stare intently at her. "I've got a general idea of why you did it. What I want you to tell me, is what do I do now?"

Charon, who had started engaging himself with nudging Cort into an upright position whenever she tottered, absently piped up with a rare contribution, possibly feeling a small amount of empathy with the man's unique situation and more than familiar with the catalyst that had set it off. "Just fucking roll with it. Turns out better that way."

Resisting the urge to slap a hand over her face, Cort gave up and just leaned back against the ghoul while shrugging at Harkness, immediately regretting it as her battered chest flared up in complaint. "_Ow_. Uh. Whatever you were doing before I ah..." She looked around at the shattered clothing stall, the bodies on the floor, and then back to him, flapping an arm wearily. "The things happened."

Harkness raised his own arms and sighed heavily before letting them drop, looking more than a little lost as he let the words tumble out of himself. "Before this happened, I knew who I was, who I wanted to be. I can remember everything now. Who I was before, all the runners I captured and brought down, the guilt. And this life...this life is a _lie_."

Cort rubbed her face and muttered quietly before speaking up. "Yeah, I know how _that _feels. Look. Nothing's really changed, not really, not if you don't want it to. You'll just have to decide what it is that you want and live with it."

"This morning I was living as a man, a human. I cut myself shaving this morning for God's sake, I _bled_!"

Moving to shrug again, she caught herself just in time, settling for flicking her hands. _ Cripes, I don't even want to _think _about what my boobs must look like. I feel like I've been freaking deflated. _"Weeell you can still be a man? He is, and he's not human." Cort jerked her head back against Charon, who stared impassively over her as her helmet thumped on his plated chest. "I bleed, and I'm not human. They're all not mutually exclusive, yanno."

Harkness looked at her warily. "What do you mean you're not human? You didn't come down from the Commonwealth, you _couldn't_ have, you're wearing a Pip-"

Cort cut him off, not willing to go into it in detail. "Long story, needed money, crazy scientist, I mutated, let's leave it at that." She blinked, caught up in a sudden, soothing and rather fascinating thought. "I bet you, bet you dollars to doughnuts, aside from the farm-fresh folks left in the Vaults, there _aren't_ any non-mutated people left at all. Doesn't really matter what's on the inside; being human's really a relative concept, when you think about it."

* * *

**Slowly** getting a handle on himself as he saw the logic in her words, Harkness started getting a clear grasp on his situation. He had his freedom, a brand new life doing something he loved, and so much guilt it was making him sick, the faces of the self-determinating androids that had gone before him haunting his conscience. He supposed it was more than a fair trade-off for what he had received. _They couldn't run from me, why should I be able to run from myself? I can't start running from who I am now, either._

"Well, all in all, I have to thank you Miss. I'm very grateful..." He trailed off as she smiled happily at him, not looking forward to what he was about to do. The kid was nice, had stuck her neck out, and he was about to hang her by it for her trouble. "And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you not to come back to the city."

Cort shot up, suddenly needing no assistance to stand upright, the smile falling off her face and her voice scaling up as she stuttered. "Wh-_what_?"

"After the fight in the Muddy Rudder, along with the events of this evening and the amount of disruption you've managed to cause here in your previous visits, it's in your and Rivet City's best interest for me to put you ashore. Permanently." Looking at her face, he hardened his own to keep from letting any of the dismay he was feeling slip to the surface. If she had been angry, he thought it would have been easier for him. She didn't look angry, she didn't even look the least bit pissed, only lost, hurt and terribly confused, her voice sounding the same as it broke out of her.

"_Why_? What did I do wrong?"

He shook his head as the dog walked over to press against her leg. _You didn't care enough about what other people thought of you. You didn't hide yourself to keep from being hated by people who think you should probably be stoned to death for being different without their approval. _ He spent a nauseating moment thinking that he was going to blurt the thought out, then realized that that was exactly what he was going to have to do. "You walked into a group of small-minded people and made no effort to hide the fact that you are physically involved with a ghoul. They won't tolerate one onboard by themselves, and barely tolerate them when they're brought onboard by others. Finding out what you were doing tipped them over the edge, and eventually it's going to reach a flashpoint, one I can't allow to ignite. It's as simple as that." Feeling almost relieved as she started to get angry, he implacably waited to rebut whatever argument she could come up with.

"This is bullshit. Complete and total bullshit. What kind of people do you have living here? We spent a month, a _month_ living in the heart of the Citadel with no problems, from the fucking Brotherhood!"

"And if I had soldiers to deal with, maybe I could expect the same results. What I do have are undisciplined, prejudiced people, and as much as I find what I have to do distasteful, their safety and the safety of this city is my first priority."

Cort started walking back and forth rapidly, one hand clenched into a fist and the other pressed hard over her mouth as she paced, finally grinding to a halt in front of him after a small number of trips. He thought that she was just going to keep standing there staring at him, wide-eyed with her hand covering half her face before she dropped it and shrieked, the sound of it bouncing around the cavernous room in jagged echos.

"_I RISKED EVERYTHING I HAVE FOR YOU_!"

"Cort." Speaking up from behind her, the ghoul reached out to give her shoulder a gentle shake, Harkness eyeing them both speculatively as the girl visibly calmed down. It was the opposite of what he would have expected, her companion seeming to be the more volatile of the two on face value, although from what he could tell the big man seemed to find what he was saying entirely acceptable, his face bland and disinterested before she had lost control. Harkness switched his attention back to her as she continued in a more level tone.

"Li won't stand for this, and she's part of your city council, along with you and Bannon."

Again, he refuted her. "Li isn't here, and with the state of things as they are she most likely won't be back for a very long time. Again, what I have to deal with is the security of my city, and Bannon will be breathing down my neck the instant I leave this room. He wasn't pleased with you being here before, and considering what his shop now looks like, he'll be clamouring for me to throw you overboard, not just off. I'm sorry, Miss...I'm sorry, Cort. Please believe me when I say I wish I didn't have to do this, but I can't risk losing everything _I _have for you." Harkness added a new memory to be guilt-ridden over, watching her face finally fall.

"Fine, I'll finish my business and get the hell out. I just need to grab my stuff from Li's quarters and trade out, I have armour and weap-"

He shook his head. With the way things had been going onboard lately, everyone keyed up over the Enclave and now this new mess to send everyone into a tailspin, he could almost see the carnage that would break out if they went back through the ship. There had been a slew of complaints after their last stay, and considering the vitriol most of them have been laced with, each one seemingly more hateful than the last, he had handled each one personally in an effort to keep things from boiling over. Knowing that, he knew that someone would take a swing, throw a bottle or speak exactly the wrong words, and then heads would roll down the corridors. Seeing what had happened to Armitage and Zimmer, he was more than aware that the majority if not the entirety of them would be made up of the residents and his own staff. "I'm sorry, again. You'll have to barter somewhere else. Some of my officers will collect your belongings. You can wait outside on the deck."

"Hey!" All of them turned at a deep-voiced shout from behind, the tension in everyone drowning slightly in a wash of sudden perplexity. Flak was leaning over his counter, rubbing a .308 cartridge back and forth over his long black moustache before using it to point at Harkness, having remained behind to watch from the shadows of his stall instead of joining the mass exodus. "You try to run off one of my suppliers before I get my business done and some of those items you like to buy just might dry up, Chief."

Harkness swore internally and glared at the merchant, who was now scratching the side of his shaved head with the shell and giving him a shit-eating grin. An ex-slaver, he had set himself up with his partner Shrapnel a few years ago and developed into a model citizen, helpful, hardworking, and relatively quiet. What Flak also was, the manipulative bastard, was a grade-A informant. Any time one of the Paradise Falls crew happened to poke their noses into the city, Security knew about it before they had even had time to kick the radiation from their boots, and Harkness was more than aware that it had prevented at least a few citizens from ending up on the wrong side of a slave collar. He thinned his lips. _As if there's a right side._ "We can't have that, can we." He pointed at Cort as he started to move. "You stay here, all of you. I'm going to make sure you get your things, double-time, and then get moving as soon as you're done."

* * *

**Cort **watched him go, feeling sick and angry. "Fine. I can't wait. Bated breath and all." Harkness said nothing, just calmly jogged up the stairs and out, an immediate shout for him rising up as he opened the door. _Good, I hope they tear you a new one._

"You better have something nice in whatever you hauled in this time, kid. He'll end up making me pay for that somehow." Flak was shaking his head at her, now making the cartridge dance over his knuckles, backwards and forwards over both hands as his fingers rolled in smooth waves.

Crossing her arms, she scuffed her feet over to lean on the counter, Charon slowly walking behind. Unsurprisingly, Shrapnel was still in the shop, sprawled crankily over one of the storage lockers on the floor, the sour man never seeming to be very far away from his partner. He rolled his eyes and she rolled hers back in their usual greeting exchange before turning her attention entirely to Flak. "Make you pay? I'll make _him _pay, the ungrateful,_ rude_ sonofa-"

"Listen for the pop, kid." The cartridge sped up.

"The what?"

He flicked his hands, and the bullet disappeared as he smiled, looking like a thuggish, big-bodied, small-time Houdini. "It'll be the sound of your head finally coming out of your ass." He leered at her and amended himself. "Your _pert_ ass."

"Hey!" Cort awkwardly planted both hands over her rear, pissed off and affronted. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? And I _don't _mean the last part, thank you kindly." She blinked, surprised as Charon issued another unprompted opinion.

"I suggest you forget about the last part _entirely_."

Flak held his hands up with the palms out, the same grin he had given Harkness back on his face. "Hey, no harm, no foul, no problems. What I mean is that you can't expect nice for the sake of nice, kid. You can't expect it to pay off, not out here."

Cort felt a little bit more of the hopeful air that continued to buoy her run out of her mental balloon at his words, the exact opposite of one of her own personal mantras. _There's that 'Santa isn't real' feeling again. Stupid, stupid, stupid._ "Great. Just great. So there's no point then, is what you're saying."

He snorted at her. "Add a second pop to that first one, if you're going to try and tell yourself that. You're sweet, _real_ sweet, sweet as a-" He cleared his throat as Charon rumbled in his and quickly moved on with what he was saying. "But you're more than a little clueless if you didn't see something like this coming eventually for letting folks know you're getting your rocks off with ol' big and ugly there. I'm betting it's the first time someone's really pissed down the back of your neck over this too, looking at you."

Crossing her arms, she stared at him sullenly. "But I didn't do anything _wrong_. What, are you going to start flinging insults now too, because this is the wrong time to start any shit with me. Go on, I dare you. Get a few good digs in before I get thrown off. Last chance." Still feeling like she had been kicked by a Brahmin and Dogmeat still giving off the occasional sneeze, Cort privately thought right now would be the perfect time for someone to go at them if they wanted to make any small amount of headway before Charon killed them, and waited for him to make her even angrier.

He shrugged, then surprised her instead. "The fuck I care what you do to find your jollies, I'm not one to judge with the shit I used to make my living on. Trust me, I've seen worse than someone deciding to bone a ghoul." Flak had in fact encountered people who had done that before, several of them, and it hadn't ended decently for either party in any of the instances of which he had run across, or at least the endings he was aware of. Considering the size and skill of the kid's particular shuffler, he thought this pair might have a much better chance of making it out intact whenever things really started to get heavy. If this evening was any indication, they were probably already beating the odds. He rolled his shoulders, thinking about the way the ghoul had just popped the bodyguard's arms out before continuing. "Look kid. I'm not telling you to change; I'd prefer if you didn't. Hell, you manage to give even me the warm and fuzzies sometimes." He opened his mouth to tell her what else she tended to give him, as well as what he wouldn't mind giving to her, then shut his mouth after another look at her companion. "All I'm saying, is don't expect to get anything good out of it. Save yourself some grief, and frankly, it's probably a good idea for you to make yourself scarce and not come back, at least not for a while. There's been folks asking around about you."

Both Cort and Charon visibly stiffened, her snapping out a query as he started scanning the large room. "What kind of folks?"

"Out of place folks. Old Flak knows a spy when he sees one, picked enough of them out at my last place of employment. Too clean, skin like yours, except without the tasty-looking mileage, teeth just as white and pretty. Wastelander clothes, but plasma weapons, and no fancyass wrist shit. My guess, some of those Enclave assholes."

Mind working too rapidly for her to keep up, she let her mouth run on its own as she scrambled to process the new information. "Why are you doing all this for me?"

"Like I said, you've got a nice ass." He paused, but the ghoul seemed preoccupied enough with what he was doing to let the comment pass. "I've also had more than my fair share of people trying to track me down. Call it professional fugitive courtesy." Flak pushed up off the counter as the door to the Marketplace slammed open, Harkness coming in with two pack-laden guards behind him. "Look lively, Andy Android's back." He glanced over to Shrapnel. "Told you he was a damn robot. You owe me fifty caps."

Cort shook her head as Shrapnel replied with something unflattering, not really surprised at this point that someone else knew that Harkness was an android and more caught up in her own queasy panic. _Yeah, this was a real great job of hiding him. God, where the hell can I hide, I need to hide before they find me._ The cowardly thought brought her up short, finding it and the reason for it personally abhorrent. Being hunted was not new, but the people who had killed her father were different from Talon Company. They were bigger, meaner, and deep down she thought she might even be afraid of them, which only made her even more furious._ Why the fuck SHOULD I hide, this is my home, MY place, and I won't give up another. Why can't anyone leave me alone, all I _want_ is to be left alone. _ She pushed the jumbled thoughts away as she half-heartedly pushed out a question to distract herself with._ Think, I need time to think. I need to get myself together and then get back home, and then I can think_. "You knew? About Harkness, I mean?"

"Heard things through the grapevine, and I had my suspicions. Nobody can be that straight laced and still be human." Flicking his hands out, Flak made the cartridge reappear, skimming it across his hands until it was almost a blur on his knuckles, grinning as her eyes brightened somewhat and started following it again. "You never really know what's on the inside of people, unless it's someone stupid, or someone selfless. Stop being the first and keep being the last, okay kid?" He snapped his fingers, and the cartridge vanished, gone in a flash of brass. "Things just might turn out alright if you do."


	20. Interlude in Anacostia

_Woot, thanks for the new reviews!_

* * *

**Hidden **in the gloom of the underground and trying to get comfortable on the canted floor she was laid out on, her head resting on Charon's ankles, Cort was staring at the dim ceiling as if she blamed it for all of her current problems while her mouth ran off a list of those she thought actually were. The ghoul himself was sitting cross-legged behind her, quietly cutting up an apple with his combat knife and letting her run herself out, deciding that it was an easier alternative than trying to discuss the matter with her, knowing it would only lead back into an argument. She had been griping for a while, and he had started breaking up her stream of bitter recriminations with the strategic deposition of fruit sections whenever her mouth flapped wide enough to admit them, which had started shortly after she had refused to eat with unusual vehemence. She had rapidly moved from squawking at the interruptions to letting him feed her, and the attention combined with fatigue was finally slowing her down into crude insults, interspersed with increasingly contented munching and annoyed yawns. It wasn't the most efficient method of diversion he had employed with her, but it had kept them from degenerating into another yelling match over his condition, Charon merely grunting in the right places and keeping generally silent as he pared away at the fruit. One of the things he had learned over the years, something which apparently seemed to be particularly useful in terms of dealing with her more unreasonable states, was to know when to keep his mouth shut and nod in the correct places, no matter how batty the notions he was appearing to agree with were. Eventually, she would wear down to the point where he could bash some sense into her.

"They fucking suck. All of them suck, especially Harkness, the frigging, frigging _cockwomble_."

Carefully slicing off another section of apple, he raised an eyebrow and looked down at her, finding the expletive bizarre by even her standards. "Cockwomble?"

"Yes. Precisely."

Charon grunted noncommitally and deposited the slice in her mouth, Cort having obediently opened up for it when he held it over her face. He thought by the time she finished it entirely, it would be safe to press her into sleeping, although he wasn't entirely sure. She had lost her temper three times today, and in ways that had alarmed him; two of them had been completely uncontrolled, one on either side of screaming at Harkness. Coming off the carrier, she had had the last fit, a childish display he had cut off immediately before it could blossom into something more serious. They had made it down the gangway and off the ramp before she had snapped. Screeching, she had grabbed up a large stone, whipping her arm back to let it fly at the ship. He gave another quiet grunt, thinking about it.

* * *

**Darting** his hand out, Charon closed it around her wrist before she could let the impromptu missile fly, patiently holding onto her as she ineffectually tried to wrest it out of his grasp. "Cort, stop it. You're not going to accomplish anything by doing that. _Stop it_." Cautiously letting go as she relaxed, he picked the rock out of her hand and tossed it into the water, continuing to calmly talk her down. "Don't let not being able to get into that fucking tub again bother you. It reeks, the people are total fucksticks, and you barely spent any time there as it was. No great loss."

Knowing he was right and letting out one last hoarse yell, she thumped to the ground, immediately wrapping her arms around Dogmeat and hugging him tightly. "Assholes."

Charon looked down at her blandly, trying to keep her thinking forward. "Yes, assholes we are entirely finished with. Now what."

"Let's just...I don't know. What should I-" Cort paused as he raised his eyebrows at her wording, then stared at the ground for a moment before looking back up to him, Dogmeat twisting his head around to do the same. She knew exactly what part of her _wanted_ to do, it wanted to retrieve George and then nuke the everliving hell out of the carrier; attractive as it was, she wasn't so far gone that she was unable to see that that plan was unfeasible and so outright hideous it was almost incomprehensible. "What do you _think_ we should do."

"Exactly what you know we should do. Continue with your original plan, or return to Megaton."

Cort took a few minutes to think and watch him, the sight of him unconcernedly and reassuringly standing over the pair of them calming her down. "As much as I want to say screw it and go home, original plan. I want to get us the caps."

He shrugged and hauled her up as she let go of Dogmeat. "Well then let's get the fuck going. We need to find a place to sleep. A _dry_ place."

* * *

**Which** was what she currently found herself in. They were in the lower tunnels of the Anacostia Crossing Metro, holed up inside an old derailed passenger car, which was the only thing Charon had deemed suitably secure enough for her to sleep in. He had made sure the doors on both sides could be locked and opened in a hurry, blithely kicked the dessicated corpses of erstwhile pre-war commuters out into a heap, and then ripped out two of the seats, making a cozy if severely slanted cubbyhole on the floor with their blankets.

The ghoul had been correct in deciding that she was winding down, and the reasons for it. There was also the fact that she was slowly sliding into a bleak pool of depression, what had happened in Rivet City making her speculate wildly about what might happen when they got back to Megaton. The thought of what could go wrong, and she was very good at coming up with things that could by now, her mind a fertile tip of possible calamities, was sucking the energy out of her ranting. _We didn't have any problems there the first time...but we weren't doing anything the first time, and I didn't even really pay attention to anybody, aside from Moira and the Atomites. What happens if I lose my house? No, I can't, Simms isn't _that _much of a jerk. He didn't freak out when I told him I was deeding it to Charon if I ever got offed. But what if he's like Harkness. What happens if the townspeople-_

Cort sucked in her breath as a sudden flash of memory hit her, thinking about what would happen if they mobbed. The Vault had had a collection of films, mostly old and wholesome fare that was determined to be essential in creating a smooth and tranquil society; which basically meant all of it was boring as shit. Something that hadn't been was the scattering of black and white horror pictures that had somehow been slipped in, which had included Frankenstein. The ending had always made her want to cry, watching the poor confused creature burning to death; seeing the ghoul's upside-down face in the dimness above, the possible parallels were not lost on her. _ I bet ol' Frankie would have made a different ending with a combat shotgun and a cluster of grenades, though. And a working brain, for that matter. Pitchforks and torches and windmills, oh my. I wonder if I'm tilting at windmills by trying to go back. Christ, we're just so literary this evening._ She let out the breath and spoke. "Charon?"

"Cort."

"Tell me everything's going to be okay." She looked up expectantly.

Charon looked down at her sharply. This was the sort of thing she was normally telling him, and something he had never been asked. He said nothing for a moment, the knife stilled over the diminishing apple, before he looked back to his hands and resumed what he was doing, deciding he was going to take the request as an order and believe the words coming out of his mouth. "Everything's going to be okay, Cort."

Cort firmly decided to believe him. There had to be at least a few more people that would be tolerant, if not accepting. Flak coming out as one of them had been almost farcical, it was so unexpected. His perverted obsession with her hindquarters aside, she decided she could consider the merchant at least halfway to being a friend(his warning about the Enclave possibly being after her had also been a precious bit of information, one she decided not to think about unless she absolutely had to. Careful she could be, cowed she would not). He had also gone out of his way to nettle Harkness. She had traded off her damaged armour, replacing the top section with a new one she had peeled off the last party of Talon mercs, and Flak had hung it at the front of the shop, staring at Harkness and giving him that same enervating and completely wonderful shit-eating grin after winking at her. _'__I'll just hang this where everyone can see it everyday. Good reminder for folks that we do repairs, ain't it Chief. Nice to have people around that can fix things for you when you need it.' _Cort curled her toes in remembrance, feeling almost gleeful. _Sweet Mary, that was fantastic._ If looks could have killed, the merchant would have dropped dead instantly from the one the android had given him._ I hope there's more people like him in Megaton than otherwise. Right. More lecherous ex-slavers running around. Yeah, that's just what I need. Pft, they're scoring higher with me than 'respectable' people. What are we going to do, though. Wait, what does _he _want to do? He should have his own say, you twit. _Cort tilted her head up, managing to get a question out before she was plied with another slice of apple. "What do you want to do when we get back to Megaton?"

Poking the last bit of food into her mouth, Charon tilted his head, pretending to regard the question thoughtfully. "You, repeatedly." He grinned as Cort spluttered and swallowed, widening it when he put the side of his hand against her face. It felt like it was burning, so she was blushing.

"Okay, well aside from that, which I am all for, what do you really want to do? I want to get to know more people there before we head out for Agatha's violin." _Get them to know me, and like me, and want me to stay. Want _us_ to stay._

This time he gave it careful consideration before replying. "I want to repair everything we own. Then examine the town for tactical insufficiencies, and reinforce the house." He paused, looking at her resignedly. "I don't suppose there's any way I can booby-trap the perimeter of it, is there."

She snorted back a laugh. "No, accidentally blowing up our neighbours would be impolite, I think. Make it damned hard to borrow a cup of sugar if I needed it."

"What?"

Cort grinned and shook her head, feeling slightly better. "Nevermind." Hearing his conscientious but rather dry plans, she had already made up her own mind to surprise him with the books she had squirrelled away in her room, the tattered but intact volumes locked up in her filing cabinet after she told Wadsworth that they were extremely valuable. Along with the various self-instruction magazines, she had at least twelve assorted pre-war books, not including the ones she currently had jammed in her pack. Pleased at the idea, she continued on. "I want to decorate the house more, it's pretty bare, and I want to see Gob. I wonder if he misses me."

Charon snorted, thinking about the bartender and the dazed expression he had gotten at the sight of her before his own appearance had shocked him out of it. "_Misses_ you? He fucking _worships_ you."

Startled by what she found to be an entirely off the wall claim on his part, she blinked. "What? Don't be silly. He's happy to see me, yeah, but that's just because he's my friend.'' She fidgeted, uncomfortable with the idea of being put on a pedestal by anyone, particularly someone she personally thought she was letting down. "How the heck did you come to that conclusion anyway? You've seen him around me like what, one time?"

Grumbling, he finally flicked the denuded apple at Dogmeat, who had been staring at it like he was trying to draw it to himself by sheer mental will as soon as he had finished slicing, then slid his knife back into his boot after wiping it clean. _Fucking clueless._ "I came to that conclusion because I have eyes in my head and I'm not stunned as fuck about this kind of stuff anymore, thanks to you." Reaching out, he stroked one of her eyebrows with his thumb and continued the thought silently. _Because sometimes, I see you looking at me like that, and now I know what it means_.

"But...why the fuck would...why _me_? I didn't do anything for it and I don't deserve that." _The only thing I'll deserve is to be put down, if I keep going like I am. If I slip all the way_. Cort thought of George again and shuddered, then firmly redirected her focus back to Charon. "I do not deserve that at _all_."

"To him you do. Think about it. He's a pathetic, beaten down lonely mess. I know how fucked up he is, I remember him when he _wasn't_. From what I've seen and what you've told me, the only person in that shitstain bar who doesn't treat him like garbage aside from you is the redhead, who I am willing to go out on a limb and say does _not_ treat him like you do, even if she's friendly." Taking in her stubborn expression, he decided to lay it out as frankly as he could. "You're smart Cort, but you can be really fucking stupid about cluing into some things. Like the effect you have on a ghoul who's barely one step above being an abused animal. That crack you made in front of him about smoothskin men probably didn't help either." He grinned again, remembering. "Although that _was_ really fucking funny."

Cort froze at how he had referred to Gob and rapidly ran over what he was referring to, carefully rolling the words over in her head and what the bartender had said afterwards. _I said smoothskin men were deplorable after that shit Moriarty made some asshole comment about having a ghoul for company. And then the next day Gob asked if I meant what...oh jeeze. He wasn't asking what I thought of _them_, he was asking...oh jeeeeze. _ Cort slapped her hands over her face as the enormity of the situation hit her, her voice coming out muffled and strained. "I am a fucking _idiot_. A catastrophe of social interaction. Shit, what am I going to _dooo_."

"You were fucking _naive_, which isn't always a bad thing." He looked down at the fluff of tangled hair and dirty hands that was passing for Cort's face at present. "Definitely not bad for me. And hell if I know. You're the one who figures this sort of crap out. I just shoot people and blow shit up."

She brought her hands down, leaving a smudge across one cheek. "You do a lot more than that."

Charon wiped the dirt from her face, then moved his fingers through her hair, carefully pulling out the snarls he could reach. "Sometimes."

"Whatever I figure out, it'll involve getting him loose from that fuck, no matter what, and screw the consequences. It'll be frigging _poetic_, I'll make sure of that." She calmed down for a moment, alternately thinking of what kind of intoxicating violence she could justifiably perpetrate and how happy Gob would be to be shut of the smarmy bastard, then of how happy he would be to see _her_, which shunted her back into another bout of uncomfortable and circular thinking. _ Oh God oh jeeze what do I do, oh sweet crippity _crap _start with not thinking about it! _"Well! I'll-I'll figure it out when we get there. We've already got a lot to do, and I'm tired."

"Then go to sleep, idiot. _After_ you give me my feet back, otherwise they'll be dead as doornails by morning."

"Okay." Cort obligingly sat up, letting him stretch his legs out before sprawling back down on them. She was silent for a long while, long enough for him to think she had drifted off, if it wasn't for the absence of her snoring, and the shine of her eyes in the dark. Her wide open eyes. Charon heaved a sigh.

"What, Cort."

"What was he like. Before."

He rolled his own eyes. _Oh for fuck-_ "It's not like I knew him. He treated me like I was a potentially homicidal coat rack."

Cort flicked her eyes up and frowned. "Fifty fucking years of listening."

"Ah shit." He sighed again, settling himself in to slog through a distasteful set of memories to pick out what she wanted. "A lot like he is with you when he's relaxed, or as close as he _gets _to it from what I've seen, but without checking over his shoulder every five fucking seconds. Lot more assertive, lot more cocky."

She blinked a few times, trying to fit that particular personality trait into the quiet bartender and not quite making it. "Gob. Cocky."

He gave her a half shrug. "Well, when he left he was. He wasn't when he first showed up. More like he is now, but not so nauseatingly pathetic. Angrier. From what I could tell, Carol fixed a lot of that, once she got her hands on him." Charon personally thought he had been a pissy little shitbag, but admitted to himself that he might have had a skewed perspective. He had considered more or less _everyone_ who came in some type of shitbag, the annoyance level increasing in relation to how much they tried to interact with him. Gob hadn't done much of that, but he _had_ come in with a massive chip on his shoulder you could spot a mile away, which wasn't exactly rare with ghouls who had arrived fresh from the Wasteland. He supposed there was something positive to be said about Underworld, if you were actually allowed to _interact_ _in it_ anyway, considering the way it seemed to civilize the marginalized people who trickled in over the years like the world's tardiest apocalyptic refugees. He snorted. _Well, unless someone else fucks them up again_. "Then he got confident, and unsurprisingly did something stupid with it. Greta filled his head up with foolish nonsense about making it rich out here, 'what could go wrong, you're a ghoul, there's radiation everywhere. Heal in it, hide in it', you get the fucking idea. Total shit."

Cort rolled her eyes. "I could ask why she did it, but I know why, the wench. Which one of them was there first?"

"Greta. She was there when I arrived. Gob about twenty years ago, I think, I don't fucking know for sure. Look, I didn't exactly get much of a fucking chance to record comings and goings, unless they washed up inside that _shitting_ bar, alright?"

Hearing his voice shift into a snarl and watching his shoulders hitch up, Cort tactfully decided to find a completely different topic to distract him with, having obviously exhausted his comfort level with the current one. "I watched you, you know. Killing Armitage."

He straightened up slightly, his temper dissipating. To his immense disappointment, the fight with the android hadn't really been much of one, and he had cut off mangling the tin can further for the sake of expediency. If the encounter hadn't satisfied her expectations, he needed to know. "Oh? And?"

Cort reached up and traced one hand along his jaw. "I didn't know you could move like that, it was _awesome_. You're fantastic, you know that?"

Charon regarded her quietly, seeing the shape of the look on her face in the gloom, _that_ look, and felt a quiet sort of pride in himself. "Sometimes. Now go to _sleep_, Cort."

"Okay." Cort did.


	21. Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

**About **the same time that Cort was slipping under, Gob was finding that he couldn't, and thought he would give an entire month of Sundays for just a lousy five minute nap. He was curled up on top of the bed in the spare room of the saloon, where he usually slept whenever Nova didn't have a customer to occupy it with. Moriarty had allowed him to continue using it, telling him _'have to keep you going for _her,_ boyo. She'll think you've run off, and you can't stand up straight behind the bar', _something that he had found himself feeling grateful for and sickened by at the same time. He thought he might have said the hell with it and slept behind the damned bar as he normally did when the room was being used, then decided that one, he was too sore and tired now to bear it when he didn't have to, and two, there was no telling what would happen if he refused the fucking Irishman's benevolent gesture.

_Don't think of that, think of something else, think of anything else. If you sleep, it stops for a while, and maybe eventually you just won't wake up. They'll open the door and find you and you'll be gone, just-_ He nearly shot off the bed as someone suddenly pushed the door open, and he hurriedly strangled the breathless heaving noises he hadn't even realized he had been making, his terror rapidly moving into confusion as he whispered as much as he was able. "N-Nova? What the hell are you _doing_?"

She was leaning against the door jamb, bleary-eyed and plucking at the torn fishnets below the hem of her skirt, her hair looking like a firey halo around her head in the light from the floor below. "Coming in to keep you company, sugar, you sound like you need it."

"_What_? Nova, you can't be in here. He'll...he'll..." Gob wanted to say something out of concern for the drugged out redhead, but couldn't bring himself to do it, even as much as he hated himself for it. If anything happened because of this, it would happen to _him_. He couldn't bear anything else coming his way, his metaphorical plate being painfully, emphatically full and an inch away from breaking.

She flapped a hand, then moved into the room, shutting the door behind her. "He'll be out like a light for hours. Don't even worry about it."

"But he'll _hear _you." Gob hissed at her and sat up abruptly, wondering if anything else could possibly get worse for him. He would be lying if he said he hadn't dreamed of the woman coming up to the room with him in it, dreamed about it a _lot_, but it hadn't been with her drugged out of her skull and him with his nearly beaten in. He also thought, somewhere deep in the back of his head, that maybe it would be nice if it really did get worse, considering that that would probably mean it would finally all be over with. It was getting close to it, he knew it. He had been pissing blood since last Thursday, after snapping back at Moriarty for a particularly cutting set of taunts focused on Cort never showing back up, Gob telling him that she always came back and would outsmart him again. He thought it almost might've been worth the shot to the kidneys just seeing the dumb, surprised look on his face. Almost.

Nova flapped both hands this time. "Hah, no he won't. Even if he did, he'd just think I was going out for a piss and a wash. He might hear you if you keep winding up though, so hushit."

He shook his head, dimly realizing that he was well past the point of being able to control himself entirely. He hadn't even noticed he had been making enough noise to attract someone's attention, a particularly alarming development and not a good sign. Considering how wasted she looked, it must have been substantial. "Nova, I _can't_. I don't care, I can't take it anym-" Gob stopped, completely dumbfounded as she suddenly flopped on the bed and crawled up next to him, clumsily wrapping her arms around him in a weak hug. _Nobody_ normal hugged him, aside from Cort(and oh sweet _Jesus_, how he missed that, missed feeling her, the brief moments by now enshrined in his memory, everything from the last embrace back to when she had held out her hands after he had accidentally clocked her, coaxing him off of the floor). Nova had cleaned him up on more than one occasion over the last few weeks, gingerly patting at his face with a rag or helping him up, but this, this was just, just... "N-Nova?"

"Well I care. You're the only friend I've got in this shithole." Letting go, she shoved at him, and still feeling completely poleaxed, he let her push him back on the bed. Scooting up, she sat at the head of it, one hand over her lap and the other on top of his head. "I'll stay here 'till you feel like sleeping, okay?"

Feeling her fingers smooth themselves shakily over his rough scalp, Gob felt some small, too-tight part of himself loosen, and turned towards her as it quietly broke. Curling up against her, one arm flung over her legs and his face buried against the worn cloth covering the side of her hip, he let go of himself as much as he dared, getting a rush of renewed terror at the thought of making any noise. This was...he wasn't sure _what_ this was, but he didn't want to let go, or do anything to risk losing it before he had to. Nova did nothing but continue to stroke his head and back as he silently fell apart, either taking everything in stride or too high to care, and Gob found he didn't much give a shit about why she was suddenly letting a ghoul clamp onto her, as long as she didn't stop him from doing it. She was warm, and she was soft, and her hand wasn't hitting him. She wasn't Cort, but she was here. Knotting up the side of Nova's skirt in his hand, he hugged her even tighter._ Oh Christ, Cort. When are _you_ going to be here?_

* * *

**Nova** stayed for hours, well after he had finally nodded off, her hand getting shakier as the night ran itself out and she came down, and she finally just placed it on the side of his neck. Unlike Gob, she knew exactly when Moriarty was sleeping and when he was liable to wake up, and when he was actually laid out and not playing possum. He hadn't been her first go around with a domineering control freak, and as much as he could make other people dance to his tune, Nova knew the music by heart. _Overbearing sonofabitch. Someday someone's going to fix his little red wagon, sugar, and this will all be over. I could fix it. I could-_

She sat up straight, frantically pushing her short hair off her forehead with her other hand, her eyes going wide and more than a little panicked, which ebbed slightly as Gob twitched in his sleep at her sudden movement. _Dangerous thoughts, girl. Clear thoughts, and what good did clear thinking ever do you?_ Looking around at the tiny, grubby room and the large, grubby ghoul next to her, she allowed herself a quiet snort. _What good has drugged out thinking ever done you. Well, it got me here when I heard him working up into a lather._ Calming down further, she looked curiously over the figure clinging to her lower half, finding it helped to distract her from the shakes. He _was_ rather large, tall but not overbearing. He was normally hunched over any manner of things, glasses, the bar, the sink, and she thought that he might be a nice height if he stood up straighter. Skinny but broad shouldered, and just the perfect height for a man, tall enough so that your lips would press into the hollow of his throat if you-

_Oh Jesus sugar, what are you _thinking_. Making it with Mister tall, rotted and squishy. _Nova gave a half-hearted shudder, stopping herself partway through it, not comfortable with what she was trying to do to herself and not wanting to wake him up again._ No, you know exactly what you're thinking, you're thinking it's nice to have a man who didn't go straight into your drawers after crawling into his bed. A real sweetheart of one. Too low for your standards. Right, what standards were those again?_ Nova shook her head. She had never been good at lying to herself, if she had, she wouldn't have been spending this particular portion of her life stoned halfway to oblivion. No, if she had come up in the middle of the night to anyone else, anyone 'up to standards', her clothes would have been off by now, removed out of expectation of what normally followed and not always by her. As it was, having them still on in _this_ room was so abnormal it was almost surreal, just adding another bizarre spin to the whole affair.

Tilting her head and gnawing nervously on her lip, Nova carefully moved her hand down and delicately plucked at Gob's shirt, forcing her fingers into some semblance of straight behaviour before flattening her palm against his side. She didn't suppose another opportunity to poke at him would come up in the near future, and wanted to satisfy her curiosity while she could; hauling him up off the floor had slightly changed her physical preconceptions of him. He wasn't squishy, not _really_; there was definitely muscle underneath the ratty cotton, more springy than anything else, like someone who hadn't hardened off into complete adulthood(If there was one thing she could say she knew about, the state of the human body in its various conditions was one of them, and to her the ghoul just didn't _feel _finished). Not for the first time, she wondered just how old Gob had been when his body had gone to hell. Looking at him, it was most likely after he had finished growing. Feeling him, she didn't think he had made it much farther than that. Somewhat over a year ago, he had told her and Silver, rather reluctantly after they had both asked about how much stayed the same, how much _worked_, that aside from how they looked, ghouls were effectively in the same condition they were when they changed, and _yes_, everything worked. Asking when and how old he had been, _what_ he had been before he changed had been a mistake, and he had shut down almost immediately, no amount of girlish wheedling getting him to budge. He had merely retreated to the sink and picked up another glass to endlessly polish, the shoulders that had straightened slightly again hunched in on themselves. Silver had jabbed her in the ribs going back to their respective spots, quietly told her that he would probably tell Nova everything if she wanted to take him as a customer, and they had laughed just as quietly, the emotion not quite reaching their eyes. If he had been normal, Nova thought both of them would have gone after him in a heartbeat, just for the adoring way he normally looked at them.

He had been wary of her for the first week, but she had always had a soft spot for hard luck cases, probably because her own life hadn't exactly been sunshine and roses. The way the ghoul had been treated by Moriarty had only cemented her efforts to draw him out. After he had decided that she wasn't going to hit or fling anything at him, words or otherwise, Nova had found her first friend in what had been a veritable drought of lonely years. She had made sure to keep it as platonic as possible; as ruined as his face was it was easy to read once he started talking to her, and Silver had warned her in advance. _ 'He's sweet, he's lonely, and he has to be off-limits, not that that's a problem with the way he looks and that Godawful smell. There is a man with a desperate heart, sister, one that would swallow you whole. You know the type.' _She did, and Nova patted him gently, not for the first time thinking that that sort of need wasn't necessarily a bad thing in the right person, if you were strong enough to take it. _One big heart, that never gives up. Almost._

A week ago, he had finally stopped asking her to stop Jetting when she did it in front of him, but she couldn't blame him for the sudden lack of concern, really. It was hard to show that for someone else when you were getting the shit kicked out of you like clockwork, especially if that particular someone was doing nothing to stop it. He said nothing about that, either, only gave her the same sad look he had used whenever he had brought up the drugs, which she had also not been trying to stop. He had kept asking for the longest time though, starting when she did; not badgering her about it or anything severe, just quietly bringing it up whenever she looked like she had gone too far off the rails. Looking down again, she wondered what her current location meant for that. _Have I just lost a car or two, or everything from the engine to caboose? Whatever it is, it's time to go, time to skate, it's getting early, it's getting late._

Cautiously slipping out of his grip and moving him around with the skill of long practice, Nova carefully placed his arm across his chest, freezing for a moment when he rolled onto his back before letting go of his wrist. His head had tilted back, and there was that little hollow spot on his throat, still covered with skin and still perfect. Nova considered things. He was sweet, she was still pretty damn high, and she was more than positive they could be quiet enough; and those hands...ragged or not, they looked almost graceful, wide palms and long-fingered, good for so many things. He didn't smell nearly as bad as some of her more colourful clientèle, and would probably be one hell of a lot more attentive to her. He was also so torn up, inside and out, it was heartbreaking. She debated for a moment, considering, and then shook her head. Sleeping with him, _that_ kind of sleeping with him was out of the question. Moriarty would turn it into some kind of a weapon against him, and would probably turn her out; indentured with a roof over your head was still a roof over your head, and she couldn't risk losing that with the state she was in. Besides, with the squirrelly way he had been acting, it would probably be something a whole lot worse than being suddenly homeless. It would definitely be _something_; finding out you were bedding down with a whore who had serviced a ghoul on the side would be a real business killer for a lot of folks, and if she couldn't bring in caps, well. Money talked, and she would walk. Continuing to stare down at him as her frazzled mind banged from one thought to another, she started shifting from foot to foot, uncharacteristically nervous and fingers thrumming against her stomach as she looked down at his poor, sad face. _But maybe sugar, just maybe, one little thing to make yourself feel better. One tiny, secret, insignificant-_

Darting forward, a sudden rush of adrenaline lending her enough control to keep herself light on her toes, Nova leaned forward and pressed her lips against Gob's, her arms held out to keep her balance, wavering like a little bird on the crest of a sharp wind as she concentrated on what she was feeling. They felt almost cool, which was unnerving, and dry, which wasn't, considering the amount of Brahmin-mouthed louts she usually had slobbering over her face in the run of a week. They were also surprisingly firm and smooth, rather like brushing up against a worn scrap of weatherbeaten leather. That moved. _Moved? Oh shit, shit!_ Nova skittered silently back, still up on the balls of her feet and ready to bolt until what he was doing sank in. He was smiling, a sweet, open and unguarded one that she didn't think she had ever seen on his face before. Emboldened when he didn't move any further, she crept slightly closer. Even when she had seen him smile at the Vault girl, it hadn't been quite like this. Oh he had been happy, he was nothing _but_ happy on the rare occasions when she managed to blow through, but there was always that look in his eye, the lines in his face, looking like a kid who was expecting some bully to yank his teddy bear away and pull the stuffing out, one who had had it happen before and knew it was inevitably going to happen again, no matter how hard they tried to deny it.

She frowned, thinking. It _was_ happening again, she supposed, except this time it was Gob who was the poor beaten teddy, and the Vault girl was the kid Moriarty was setting up to knock down. Nova was of the firm, delighted opinion that the girl however, would do a lot more than sit defiantly on the floor. Would be _able_ to do more, especially if she still had that big merc bastard following her around. Gob knew him, had told her he was massively dangerous, a complete asshole, and would do whatever the kid said, no matter what, no questions asked. Cort had gone crazier than a shithouse rat over Gob losing his letters, and something like this? Nova was betting her reaction would be a show you could sell friggin' tickets to. She fidgeted in excited expectation and withdrawal._ Now if the dippy little wingnut could only hurry the hell up and get here, before I have to do...something. I could do something. Oh, no, the hell with that, what I did tonight is already insane. No, no and no, sugar. Definitely not._

Pushing that dangerous, independent and entirely too clear thought away, Nova refocused on Gob's face, and what was still there. The smile stayed for a few more minutes before disappearing, and this time all he looked like was asleep, the weary fatigue, the sick fear gone entirely out of him for the first time in weeks. Creeping back over, she looked at him, feeling a little amazed. _ I did that. He doesn't even know that I did, nobody will. But I did that. I-I think I want to do that again._ Deciding she had been daring enough for the evening, Nova moved quickly to the door, juddered to a stop with a muffled squeak after opening it and then turned, rapidly flicking the blanket on the bed half over the top of Gob before practically running out on her tiptoes and shutting him back in by himself. As soon as it was closed, she cocked her head, green slanted eyes suddenly looking almost savage as she made her way down the balcony, boots unerringly landing on the portions of the floor that would not squeak or groan as her hands trembled and quaked.

Walking back into her room and rooting through her things(she was back in her proper place now, and noise was safe, noise in here would be wonderfully misleading if any little dicked pitcher with big ears woke up to listen to it), she pulled out a Jet inhaler, eyeing it with a calculating stare that would have set Colin Moriarty's instincts off like a twitchy Mini Nuke in a hailstorm if he had seen it. She couldn't go cold, even though she knew she was capable of it. The slimy Irish shit would know almost right away, if not immediately, what she was trying to do and that something was up. That she was _planning_. Carefully holding the drug away from her, feet twisting in place and the other hand clenching up with the effort of not jamming the entire dose into her needy body, she depressed the trigger and released half of it into the room before quickly placing it in her mouth, eyes closing in pleasure as she sucked the remainder back. Placing the empty inhaler somewhere visible but not conspicuously so, she crawled into her own bed and sighed, feeling the first comforting rush as the Jet hit her. No, she couldn't go cold, but she could go cool. Just enough to keep an eye out. Just enough to know, and maybe get a better handle on things when the right time came, for whatever or whenever that was, and time to figure things out. Not enough to do anything, she couldn't dare, but maybe just enough to run and open her mouth to someone who could. Just enough maybe, for Gob.


	22. What's That Smell?

_Thanks for the new reviews, messages and alerts! Encouragement and critique is always ace. :) Enjoy the long chapter, the next few will probably take me a bit longer to sort out properly.  
_

* * *

**Charon** was crouched next to Cort and Dogmeat. Cort and Dogmeat were crouched next to a brick wall. Next to an opening in the brick wall was crouched a Wastelander, shit-scared out of his mind and pinned down by a detonator-toting, loud-mouthed evangelical lunatic perched in a building halfway down the alley that terminated in the aforementioned brick wall, alternately begging the ghoul, the girl and even the dog to do something.

"He'll set it off if I move, I've been here for two days! You have to help me!" He let out a low wail as the crazed preacher shouted another string of nonsense, and Cort let out a low grunt as the wind shifted. She didn't know if it was a result of holding it for too long or having it scared out of him, but at some point the man had shat his Brahminskin pants. Either way, she didn't care. Either way, it _stank_. Her momentary happiness at being able to handle sunlight again, at least with her glasses still on, was also being thoroughly impugned by being able to _see_ the mess, the dark stains showing up as a nauseating green through the protective lenses in the bright noon glare.

"_A great crack shall open in the earth and swallow the nonbelievers! And they shall weep, weep, weep! Tears of salt and earth and dirt_!"

"You have to _shut up_ before he notices you yapping to someone and screw all of us! Now can it or we're going to just up and leg it." Cort twitched as if she was going to actually start running, and the dark-haired man instantly subsided into frantic whimpering after giving a quiet yelp. Grumbling, she turned her head towards the big ghoul beside her, who was currently peering over his section of wall, well out of the insane man's sightline. "What does he have in there?"

"_Not one step further! Not one! Come no closer! I'll do it! I'll blow us all to hell! All of us! Me, you... and the worm..._"

Charon replied without taking his eyes away from the alley. "Frag mines, at least three Mini-Nukes. They're definitely all wired up. "

"_Christ_." She dug a finger under her Pip-Boy glove and scratched meditatively. "Any way to shoot him?" She was beyond ready to shoot someone. Coming up out of the Metro, they had made their way partway to the Ranger Compound before tangling with a small group of Super Mutants, something that had not improved the bitter mood she had still been in upon waking; thrashing out of a particularly nasty set of nightmares had laid the groundwork for her continued acrimony. Made curious by the wavering voice that she had heard after the firefight had been over and hopeful for something interesting that would distract her, she had come to peep at the preacher pontificating somewhat towards the centre of Seward Square, although not in the apparently careless, rubbernecky way the Wastelander had.

"_And the sun will rise in the north! No, the northwest! For forty four days and sixty seven nights! And we'll never notice_!"

Charon thought carefully, and phrased his response based on her open-ended question, Cort not having specified which one of them would be responsible for taking the nutjob out. He would be damned if she thought _she_ was going down there. "Not unless I go down the alley. We have a Stealth-Boy left I can use, he won't see me." Unsurprisingly, she saw right through what he was doing.

"Yeah, I don't _think _so, Mister. None of us are going down there. I'm not that nuts." She gave off a bored sigh as the lunatic cranked out another homily.

"_The sun! It burns! Why does it burn! Why did we put the sun into a jar? And what did we do with that jar? We broke it all over our little world_."

Cort slowly let a breath out through her nose. "You know, we have to do something. He's starting to make sense."

He turned his head briefly, giving her a thoroughly unimpressed look. "Well, we could give shit-for-pants there the Stealth-Boy. Maybe motormouth will be thrown off enough to give him a few seconds to run."

"_In fourteen-hundred and ninety-two, your mother and my mother were hanging up clothes around the mulberry bush_."

She gagged, waving her hand in front of her face as the wind puffed again. "Oh God, don't say the word shit right now, just don't." Putting down her repeater, she carefully shuffled out of her pack, digging around in the clutter for a minute or two before withdrawing the little piece of pre-war tech. Putting herself back together, she looked over to the Wastelander. "Okay, you're going to put this thing on, activate it, and then run like blue stink. Just read the instructions on the side." Cort blinked as he let out a breathy screech, momentarily jerking out of his cowering ball.

"Are you _crazy_? I told you, I've been crouched here for two days, I can't run! You have to kill him!"

"_Trees! So many trees! To the north! But be careful... the trees... are deadly, and the trees too will be consumed in the belly of the great fat worm_!"

Cort snarled at him. "I don't have to do jack, Mister Pickypants. This is the only option you've got, so you might as well take it. Otherwise have fun living next to this wall. Me, I'd see if he'll let you decorate, put down a throw rug or something, since you'll be here for however short the rest of your life is." She considered she was being extremely unsympathetic, cruel even, taking into account what the poor man had gone through, and ultimately decided that didn't much care, still feeling extremely misanthropic after what she had gone through in Rivet City._ Why should I risk my family again for some asswipe who would probably leave me strung out to save their own skins? Fuck that, this is more than enough effort on my part_. Making up her mind, she tossed the Stealth-Boy at him. "Catch."

Not waiting to see if he would use it or not, she turned and started creeping away the second it hit his fumbling hands, Charon and Dogmeat instantly falling in behind her. They had made it back through the sad, shattered remains of what had once been a block of pretty row houses before a massive explosion tore out, debris flying up out of the surrounding buildings and shooting from the alley, the shockwave rumbling under their feet a split-second later. Cort idly watched the shards of brick and metal spinning through the rising cloud of dust, silently betting with herself on how long it would take for them to come down and trying to spot any body parts. She looked over to Charon as he rasped over the receding roar, yelling slightly.

"Do you want to see if he made it?"

She shrugged as the last bits of broken masonry and twisted metal clattered to the ground, nudging the cover off of her Pip-Boy as she turned in place. "What do I care."

Charon blinked and stared dumbly at her armoured back, struck silent by her angry, indifferent tone. He said nothing as she hesitantly started walking again, only followed along and scanned the surrounding area for anything that may have been attracted by the huge commotion before Cort gave him another verbal slap in the face.

"Okay, it's this way. Come on, there's some long overdue payment to collect. We'll need it to pay for another damn Stealth-Boy, I don't like not having one. Friggin' waste, is what that was."

Now even more troubled, he still kept silent, not sure of exactly what he would say in the first place to this new emotional display. He had been pleased that she had accepted his suggestion to give up the piece of tech, the solution being something that allowed her to aid the stinking, stunned twit without risking any one of them physically, it having been somewhat more circumspect than her normal behaviour of direct involvement. What she was doing _now_ however, was definitely far outside of normal behaviour. Cort _always _cared. It was a defining characteristic, her altruistic, idiotically blind concern for anything remotely distressed that fell into her sphere of perception, doing everything from wasting scarce purified water on a beggar to a rare .44 shell on an already dying Yao Guai; she had even stroked the mutant bear's head after blowing half of it off, petting the ragged corpse as if to comfort it.

She had still given up something important here, which was typical, but this was the first time he had seen her begrudge the sacrifice, or show such a callous indifference to someone who needed her. It was practical, realistic, and what could be considered an appropriate reaction to the world they were living in, something that he would have said and had in regards to other situations they had gone through. Charon positively _hated _hearing it come out of her.

He was considering what to do, he had to make some response to this, _needed_ to since he couldn't ignore something so blatantly out of character happening right in front of him, when he heard footsteps pounding towards them. Whipping around, he had time to see a nauseatingly blurry ripple whip past him before Cort was suddenly floating above the ground and gagging, arms pinned at her sides and repeater pointing limply at the ground.

"Air, I need air!" The blur stuttered and resolved itself into the formerly captive Wastelander as she gasped out the request, who plopped her down immediately. Cort heaved in a breath and promptly gagged again at the smell as he practically hopped around her, wafting his funky miasma at her in waves. "Oh Jesus, no I don't, no I don't!"

"Thank you, thank you, _thank you_ lady! I can't thank you enough! You're wonderful!" He scrambled in his back pockets, hauled out a Stimpak and pressed it into one of Cort's hands before stumbling away. "That's all I have on me, I know it's not worth as much as this thing you gave me, but I hope it's okay." Turning with a wide, relieved grin, he moved towards Charon with his arms out, wisely thought better of it, and settled for nodding and flapping his arms. "Well, bye! I'll tell everyone about you!"

Cort stood there staring for a moment, her mouth flapping slowly as he disappeared into the ruins, skipping a few times before dropping into a more sedate and stealthy crouch. "Well. Right. I'm a giant asshole." Snuffling delicately, she reluctantly looked down. "And now parts of me smell like one."

Privately relieved as she suddenly sounded somewhat like herself again, Charon tried not to make a face at the sight of her hand. "It'll wash off."

"At least he chose the bare one. I'd never get that out of my glove." She sighed, now sounding distressingly, wonderfully upset. "Charon, if you _ever_ hear me going off like that again before or after helping someone, tell me how much of a jerk I'm being."

The ghoul heaved his own quiet, internal sigh, listening to her voice waver. _Oh thank fuck. _"I can do that. Keep an eye out, mutt." Dropping his pack as Dogmeat obligingly started patrolling, he hauled out a scavenged box of Abraxo and a bottle of dirty water, focusing entirely on the task at hand and dismissing her earlier behaviour out of it for the time being. "Vargas uses this to get Mutant blood off of his armour, it should work for that." He paused, reading the back of the box. "It might take off some skin though."

Holding her fouled hand out warily like it was something that could unexpectedly attack her at any moment, Cort levelled an exasperated glare at him and sighed. "I can only _hope_."

* * *

**The** Ranger Compound proved to be a surprisingly well-hidden and fortified installation, even with the massive painted clover and cutlass logo splashed over one of the heavy concrete walls outside of the basement floor it was situated in. It was the ruined lower level of an office building, cozily protected on all sides by collapsed buildings surrounding an interior courtyard, with one narrow entrance. Charon looked around approvingly at the area and the well constructed sandbag fortifications, keeping one eye on Cort as she poked at the terminal she had found.

Tapping in the passcode she had been given after a colourfully phrased prompt on the screen for it, she idly wondered if the camera above the heavy entrance door was functional or not. It was moving, but that hardly meant anything, and would work on the minds of the people in front of it either way. Slipping through the door, she was immediately confronted with a long flight of industrial stairs, the sloping metal corridor comfortably cluttered with coffee mugs and plates, interspersed with slips of scribbled-upon paper and the occasional empty 5mm shell. Quietly making her way down the steps with Charon and Dogmeat, she called out tentatively when she reached the base. "Hello?"

Butcher's sandy-haired head jerked out from a door down the hall, the rest of his body following after it a second later. "Well holy hell kid, I never thought I'd see you again! Figured you must've forgotten us!" He was smiling, and so were Donovan and Brick, who came out from another corridor.

Cort smiled back despite herself, brightening at the cheerful greeting. "Like I could forget that Godawful slog. I was snorting out rotted plaster for half a week."

"Weren't we all." Reilly floated in behind Brick, who tidily moved herself out of the way and somewhat behind Charon to admit the blonde(Cort thought this impressive, considering she was still wearing Eugene like a lethal metallic baby on her back), who sidestepped around him to reach Cort. "From what I've heard, it sounds like you've kept going through Hell."

"Pft, same shit, different day." Not really wanting to get into what she had gone through after last seeing the Rangers, Cort ducked her head and carefully inspected her hand before sticking it out, noting that it was spotless, if slightly raw. The befouled Stimpak had been buried under a distinctive rock after she had decided that they already had plenty, more than enough really, and wasn't it a good idea anyway to cache things in case she came back and needed them? "I'm glad to see you made it back okay."

"Thanks. Didn't take too long at all, only had to detour a bit to get around the Muties once I left Underworld." Reilly slapped her own hand into Cort's and shook it briskly before standing back, then opened her mouth. She let it hang for a second before closing it, then blurted out what was clearly on the minds of nearly everyone standing around her in the enclosed area, to varying degrees. "You know, you smell kinda funky, kid."

Patience entirely gone in regards to this particular topic, Cort looked around at the little circle of mercenaries and decided to just let it all hang out. She knew she smelled, and had had time to notice that she smelled even stronger than the ghoul at times, having the ability to sweat more profusely and the normal level of body heat. If it resulted in them being chased out, at least she wouldn't have to worry about losing friends she never really had a chance to make in the first place, and it seemed like everyone ended up knowing all of her personal business anyway. This would just make things more efficient. _ The hell with it. I'm tired, and I don't have time for this shit_. "Yeah, I know. Happens when you sleep with a ghoul. You remember Charon, right? He's the one that helped me get you down off of that roof." Slowly waggling her fingers in preparation for a possible need to move them quickly, she waited for their reaction.

All four sets of eyes flicked to Charon, the ghoul crossing his arms and staring back dispassionately, before slowly returning to her. Reilly raised her eyebrows nearly to her hairline before dropping them back down, shrugged and refrained from asking for clarification. Butcher's face was a cross between clinical fascination and nausea, Donovan just looked flat out sick, while Brick...Cort bit her cheek suddenly to keep from hooting with laughter at the sight of the brash woman. Brick was eyeing Charon's broad shoulders and backside with an avid, speculative appreciation, as if something wonderfully new and unique had just occurred to her. _Christ, I can practically see a lightbulb turning on in her head. 'Attention, shoppers, ghoul plate special on aisle one'. _Cort squinted one eye shut and bit herself harder, trying to keep the giggles in and narrowly succeeding, beating down the mirth welling up with a mental sledgehammer.

She nearly lost it all over again when Charon suddenly snapped his head around to peer over his shoulder, picking up on Brick's lustfully intent scrutiny. Glancing back warily and sensing the need for some sort of tactical response, he edged nearer to Cort, speaking in an undertone. "Why the hell is she staring at me like that."

She struggled to keep her voice steady as he shifted even closer. "Uh-huh-ha, because mentally for Brick, Tab 'C' just inserted into Slot 'B'."

Charon stared down at her like she had just told him the sky was coloured purple with polkadots. "..._What_?"

She cleared her throat and then swiftly looked at the ceiling as the merc started to critically examine the ghoul's large booted feet, holding her hands apart to measure and raising her eyebrows. "Look, I'll just tell you later." Firmly reigning her funnybone under control, she coughed politely and looked back to Reilly, whose own mouth was twitching at Brick's antics. "So, anyway..."

Reilly shook her head and smiled as Donovan snorted and retreated down the hall, Brick's behaviour having defused any negative response he might have been able to make. "Right. You're here for payment, and I wouldn't mind getting a debriefing off of you, your take on what happened during that whole mess."

"Peachy! Let's have a sit."

* * *

**After** that, Cort had what she could thought could be considered a pleasant, sociable afternoon with the Rangers, if she blocked out the fact that Donovan spent the entire time as far away from her as possible, and Butcher's staring whenever he thought she wasn't looking, peering at her like a rather interesting specimen he had been presented with. Watching Charon nervily keeping an eye on Brick the whole time made any discomfort entirely worth it, and she was fairly relaxed by the time she floated back around to talking about payment for her services. She had even felt charitable enough to offer her time up for more work the Rangers needed to complete, finding it something that would dovetail nicely with the obsessive bent she had towards wandering. The task was mapping the Capital Wasteland for one of their more lucrative clients, something Reilly was reluctant to do after nearly losing her entire team on the last job. Cort decided she could sympathize.

"So." Reilly looked at Cort seriously as she fiddled with the Geomapper Module she had been given. "Let's get down to it. I've got things to do and so do you. I can offer you Brick's Mini-Gun Eugene, and let me tell you how rare an offer that is, or a set of our battle armour. It's higher quality than those Talon castoffs you're currently in, and you can use those to repair it." Her face softened slightly. "Either way, consider yourself one of the Rangers, kid. You're the only reason I have any of them left."

Cort blinked a few times, rather touched by what she had said. "Well, thank you, very much, to you and her. That means a lot to me." Having had an idea of how attached Brick was to the heavy gun she considered taking it in appreciation of the gesture, but it was something that she wouldn't give much use to, and said so. "I'm more of a small arms sort of girl, so I'd say armour." She frowned. "That'd be two sets though, right? Because there were two of us going up on that roof, and we'd all be keeping Theo company right now if it wasn't for Charon." Cort had considered asking for three, wanting to cut one up for Dogmeat, and dismissed it. Asking for a ghoul was probably pushing her luck enough as it was, no matter how gallically Reilly had taken the admission of intimacy with one. She spoke up again as the other woman hesitated, clearly put off her stride by the question. "I can't wear something better than my partner. Could you?"

This was apparently the right thing to say, and Reilly gave her a grudgingly respectful look. "Right, so two sets. Now, you've got the Module, and I can pay you immediately for any locations you've already collected. You must have at least a few that we don't by now."

Cort smiled sweetly, no spring chicken to Wasteland bartering at this point, and not above taking everything she could get, nailed down or not. "And just so I'm sure we're clear on that, that's thirty caps for every map marker, not every download, correct?"

Reilly shook her head, then grinned broadly. "You know, you are one cocky little bastard. I like that. Every marker it is."

"Good! Let's get them off of my Pip-Boy and then get that armour. Pleasure doing business with you."

* * *

**As **stated, Charon had spent his time in the Compound keeping one eye on Cort and the other on Brick, who had finally decided to speak to him after another bout of interested staring, sidling up to him where he stood at the back of Reilly's makeshift office area. Quite well aware that they were guests, he refrained from telling her to go fuck herself, or any other number of colourful opinions he could have expressed as she drawled up at him, one of her eyes squinched shut and absently fiddling with a setting on her Mini-Gun. Charon was starting to wonder if she slept with the thing.

"You're off-limits huh? Going steady with the Vault gal?"

Not entirely sure at this point if anything about Cort was steady, aside from her simple devotion to him, he wasn't willing to bring it up with an outsider, no matter how friendly they appeared to be towards her. Telling the unsettling woman he was off-limits however, was an entirely comfortable and attractive admission. _Fuck, maybe it'll finally get her the hell away from me_. "Yes."

Brick appeared to parse that for a moment, scratching her brush-cut vigorously. "So, is there any more like you back there in the ghoul city?"

Charon rasped out a terse answer. "No." She repeated the same behaviour, this time brightening when she finished.

"Say if a girl like myself wanted to take a wander over there for some attention, who would be the best fella for me to see?" Watching her heft Eugene to pick a bit of dirt out some recessed spot(thinking of Cort, he wondered not for the first time just what it was about batty little smoothskin women that gave them a penchant for naming heavy weaponry, neither of the two being the first he had seen do that), Charon naively assumed it was a question regarding weapons repair.

"Winthrop." He thought for a moment, debating whether that was descriptive enough for her before issuing another bit of information. Cort would most likely prefer him to be helpful, and this was something that he didn't mind answering. From what he had overheard, Brick appeared to take particular delight in pasting Talon Company mercs, an activity he wholeheartedly approved of. "Blue coveralls."

"Good with his hands, is he? Right nice, and experienced? Knows how to treat a lady proper?" Brick ran a hand lightly over the multi-barrelled weapon while giving him a piercing, questioning look.

As he was wont to do, Charon considered all three questions carefully before replying. He could admit that the older ghoul kept everything running with surprising efficiency, considering the monumental effort it probably entailed(not having much of anything else to do except watch people, he had had multiple occasions to observe Winthrop hard at his work in the bar, not that anyone else had ever seemed to pay much attention to him slaving away). The bastard had also taken well enough care of Cort, to his unending chagrin, and she had never been displeased with his behaviour. He hadn't really seen anything to displease him either, as hard as he had looked for it. Turning his attention back to Brick, he answered succinctly, hoping that this was the last time she would query him.

"Yes." He blinked with mildly offended surprise as a small, extremely forceful hand thwacked into his back.

"Well hot _damn_, I just might have to visit! Thanks Charon, you're all right."

He turned slightly to put his more of his back towards the wall, not wanting to give the twitchy little sucker an opportunity to get behind him again as she grinned up brightly. "You're welcome." He heaved a strained sigh of relief as she finally wandered off, Cort coming up a moment later with a bulky sack in her arms, nodding a goodbye to Brick as she passed her. "Are we done?"

Cort rolled her eyes. "Yes, fussbudget, we're done. Come on, let's go, I've got a surprise for you once we get outside."

Charon glanced down as they made their way up the stairs and out of the heavy entrance door, feeling himself being observed again. Cort was peering at him interestingly, working her eyes down from his face to his feet while trying not to trip over her own. "_What_."

Not wanting the chance of anyone inside hearing her, she waited for the door to close before replying. "Just making sure I got you back with all the parts I brought you in with. Uh, what did Brick talk with you about?" She was happy to see him having another independent conversation with someone, but she was also dying to know what they had gone on about, given the merc's enthusiastic response to whatever he had said.

"Questions about weapon repair. Do you want to tell me why the fuck she was looking at me like that now? Or is it not _later_ enough yet." Feeling positively testy, he waited for a response. If it was a later thing then it was probably also an uncomfortably _embarrassing_ thing that he had failed to understand, especially considering how damned amused she had looked, then and now.

'Well ah." Cort flushed and ran a hand vigorously across her top lip before continuing, wondering just how to phrase the explanation. "When I mentioned sleeping with you, as in doing the _stuff_," She grinned wider as he gave her an exasperated glare at the emphasis she placed on the word. "Brick suddenly clued into the fact that she could do that with ghouls, and immediately wanted to do it with _you_."

Completely poleaxed, Charon's eyes shot open like a pair of briskly yanked windowshades, his voice sounding like the impact the spinning fabric would have made on the jamb completing the effect. "WHAT!"

Looking at him, Cort finally went over her personal hilarity high side and started whooping uncontrollably, Dogmeat yipping and dancing around her as she hit the ground and tipped over, laughing so hard she was starting to snort on every inhale.

Struggling to haul himself together over this new batshit revelation, he suddenly saw the conversation he had had with Brick from an entirely new angle, one lit up with an absolutely perverted floodlamp. Finding that this relieved his discomfort by a wide margin, Charon grinned smugly, thinking about what was now heading the caretaker's way, and what would happen when he cheerily greeted her like any new visitor. Brick struck him as someone who wouldn't stand on ceremony, preferring to get right down to business.

Finally getting herself under control and dragging herself off of the ground, Cort plopped the sack down in the lee of one of the sheltering walls, thinking. _Man, we could have changed inside, but after Brick looking like she wanted to get up to frisky-biscuits, I like the prospect of a breeze on my bottom better than a hand on his. _Looking up, she felt suddenly irritated, seeing his cheerful expression. "What, would you like that sort of attention?"

Charon looked back. She still sounded amused, but also sounded rather upset, which queerly made him feel even better. "Only from you, jackass."

Mollified, Cort started pulling out her surprise, smiling happily. "Well, good, then. Look! Better armour, for both of us. We're Rangers now, we have another place to belong to."

Helping her haul everything out and busily settling down to changing themselves, Charon supposed his uncomfortable confusion had been worth the eventual payoff. Cort sounded calm and content, was pleased with the new affiliation(he grudgingly admitted to himself that he wasn't really displeased by it either, being willing to accept the added tactical bonus it gave them), the armour _was_ significantly better, and he had solved the nagging problem of what to do to make up for his behaviour towards Winthrop after the man had protected her. He grinned again, this time rather darkly._ Well, there's my apology. Hope you like it, you old bastard._

Clipping the last bit of armour into place, Cort patted at the insignia on it, happy all over again at the thought that she didn't have to remove it this time, and that they had another new disguise, one that would make Talon mercs think twice about shooting at them as long as they didn't get too close of a look. She patted at her arm next. Reilly had even given her a spare shin guard for her Pip-Boy, after she had explained the reason for the one wrapped around her arm, and everything matched. _Incognito as a mercenary, who'da thunkit_. Sighing, she slipped her pack back on and settled it. "Come on, we've dillydallied around the city enough. Let's go home."


	23. Down the Hatch

_Thanks much for the new reviews and favs, folks! Glad everyone found the funnies funny. :)  
_

* * *

**Cort ** had stayed happy, for the most part, as the three of them made their way back out of the city through the Metro tunnels, making good time but not hurrying in any real way, lazily scavenging and slaughtering through the following few days. There were things to collect that they had missed, hardly any Talon Company for whatever reason(Cort optimistically ascribed this to them finally running out of cannon fodder, since they were apparently too stupid to smarten up), and still no Enclave whatsoever, something which Charon was privately thankful for. He still planned to kill as many of them as he could for what they had done to her, but after a long, protracted stretch of multiple traumas and recoveries, all he wanted for the moment was for Cort to stay happy and uninjured for as long as possible. There would be enough opportunity for her to run into them later, and for him to make them pay.

Unsurprisingly, this elevated frame of mind had resulted in her trying something adventurous once they had finally emerged from Farragut West Metro and crossed the Potomac, heading back into the Wasteland proper. Unfortunately, for Cort and occasionally anyone around her(in other words, all the damn time and _him_), adventurous tended to be synonymous with blinding idiocy. Standing on the shore of the river, Charon was caught between the impulse to berate her and the need to offer some sort of comfort, since while her state was wretched and distressing, it was also her own fucking fault.

"I tried to warn you, you ditz. Not even I could eat that shit. Fuck Cort, Radscorpions won't even eat each _other_." Charon shook his head and took note of where Dogmeat currently was, the animal looping around and keeping watch while Cort twitched on the ground, before turning back to the pathetic heap she made. After they had killed the giant bug, she had curiously scooped up a chunk of its light green flesh, wiggled it near her Pip-Boy, and then swallowed it before he could stop her. As a result, she was now so cramped up she couldn't even straighten her legs out. He looked up again briefly as Dogmeat gave a short bark. He had been doing that all morning, small distracted yips that seemingly meant nothing and were driving the ghoul's nerves wild. The dog never did anything that didn't mean _something_, and neither he or Cort had been able to figure it out. It made him want to get her moving even more, and he gently tapped her knee with one boot. "Learned your fucking lesson now? Don't eat anything with more than six damned legs."

Feeling rather indignant at the nudging, Cort finally cracked an eye open, forcing it to track in and focus on the ghoul standing over her after a monumental spurt of effort. _Oh thank God and little green apples, there's only one of him this time. Green. Fuck no, don't think of green anything_. She squinched herself up even tighter as her guts roiled even harder. "Maybe if I cooked it. My Pip-Boy didn't say all of it was dangerous, only the tail glands."

"Yes, and that piece of shit is always proving itself as perfectly fucking infallible."

She gave a low grunt. "Boiled it a whole lot. Might be fine then."

Frustrated, he ran a hand over the back of his helmet and snapped at her. "Seriously? Stop clutching your guts and just sick it up, it's not like you don't know how."

"I will not be defeated."

"You're turning _green_." Along with that, she was alarmingly pale, and with the dark circles forming under her eyes, she looked positively ghastly. He didn't think it was going to kill her, the wrist computer actually being fairly dependable when it came to identifying different matériel, but keeping it down was definitely not an option from where he was standing. She was ill enough already, and letting the foul stuff make it through to the other side could not be a good thing under any circumstances, and would undoubtedly make her feel unbearably worse.

Cort grabbed her sides tighter and shuddered again. _Why couldn't he just say I looked like a flaming bag of shit, or something nice. Why green_. "It's almost Saint Patrick's Day. I'm just being festive."

Charon glared at her. "_Cort_. Sick it _up_."

Cort glared back. "_No_. You can't make me."

"Yeah? Well, we'll see about that." Charon shook his head and sighed, Cort now watching him suspiciously with both eyes in between bouts of shivering. _Good girl, eyes on me. Fuck, I'm going to pay for this somehow_. Squatting in front of her, he placed his index finger in his mouth and made a deep, phlegmy hurking sound, rolling his eyes grotesquely at the same time. He moved back just in time to keep her from splattering his boots with an expulsion of froth that was an alarming shade of grey, shot through with a nauseatingly bright and sunny yellow. He looked at it, curling up his lip. Apparently the flesh hadn't liked being inside of Cort any more than she had. "Ahg. Just." Charon slipped into one of her idioms, not finding his own profanities sufficient to the task at hand. "Jesus _Murphy_, that's _disgusting_."

Cort spat and wiped her chin, the other hand still clenched over her now vacant midsection. "You _suck_."

"You're an idiot."

"Yeah well, you're the one following me. How smart does that make you."

He opened his mouth to reply as she let her head drop back down, intending to get in as much haranguing as he could while she was at a disadvantage, when the third member of their party cut them off. Dogmeat had come back in without being called, inserting himself between the pair and completely ignoring the foul mess he was now standing in. Both of them raised an eyebrow as he started whining in short, stuttering yelps, Charon standing up immediately and unslinging his shotgun before backing up to look for whatever had set him off, almost actually hoping to find something this time. "Oh, what the fuck now."

Cort looked at the animal, fighting between the last dregs of nausea and puzzlement. "I don't know, he's never made _that_ noise around me bef-" She clutched her head as Dogmeat suddenly pawed at his, both of them waggling their jaws wide open a moment later. "_Ow._ Okay, well that's why, my ears just popped. Whatsit called, barometric pressure change." She looked up as Charon grunted, his face pained. "Just pinch your nose and blow...oh damnit. Christ, Charon, I'm sorry!"

Flapping a hand to tell her not to worry about it as she winced apologetically, he then pressed it over the ragged hole that passed for his nose, clearing his own ears a moment later. Shaking his head briskly and putting his shotgun away, he looked down to her with a grim expression on his face. "Fuck. Cort, tell me what month it is."

She boggled up at him slightly from the dirt, looking like something that had been just startled from its hidey-hole under a rock. "What? Don't you know?"

"Obviously not, if I'm asking. I thought I did, but. Shit." He started looking around sharply again, both at the horizon and at the sky to the North. "Remember when I told you I've lost time over the years? I'm getting the bad fucking feeling I've lost enough for it to be a problem, so please just tell me what month it is."

Cort held up her Pip-Boy, flipped through a few screens and then shrugged. "It's just turned March, like I thought."

"_Fuck_." Running a hand over his mouth, he looked back to the sky one more time before leaning over to pull her up. _Fifty fucking years inside, too long inside, too much time in a fucking corner going dull and stupid, too much_. "We need to get moving. Now."

"Why? What the hell happens in March?"

Charon shut his eyes briefly as Dogmeat started barking wildly, then jerked his head back to the North without turning to look, a pained expression on his face. _Perfect, the fucking dog has more brains than you, you numb fuck_. He already knew what he was there, and didn't need the sight of it to rub in his clumsy oversight any further; what he needed to do was either get her to Megaton or into the nearest enclosed shelter. "That."

Wiping her mouth on her arm, Cort turned to look where he had directed and promptly let it hang open. Surging up out of the horizon was a massive wall of seething brown, rising higher and higher as she watched it, the maelstrom of flying dust looking like the desert was vomiting itself skyward towards them in a fit of geologically-induced nausea. "It's, it's _big_, it's a..." Feeling like she was running out of air even as she pulled more in, she gave up and just stood there, weakly pointing over his shoulder and shaking her head, her eyes so wide he could see white in a circle all around the grey.

"It's a dust storm, and we need to be inside before it hits us. The fucking things can go on for hours." Shoving her, he spurred her into taking a few steps before she dragged to a halt again, and he repeated the action. "They always happen before-_fuck_!" All three of them staggered as a sudden gust of wind hit them like an amorphous hammer, nearly knocking Cort off of her feet. Cursing, Charon reached over to steady her, planting his own feet wide and yelling to be heard. If they didn't move, they would be caught in it, and once caught in it, they _couldn't_ move. He wouldn't risk it. There were too many things they could run into, too many variables. "It's coming up too fast! It's going to be a bad one, we have to get inside, _now_!"

Cort, entirely overwhelmed by what was her first real experience with weather other than hot sunshine, river mist and mild breezes, numbly hunched over her Pip-Boy instead of moving when he shoved her again, clinging to it like it was a computerized security blanket. _Fixes everything, knows everything, has everything, everything, look at it not that not that! _She flipped rapidly to her map screen, almost screaming in reply. The wind was getting stronger. "The Super-Duper Mart's the closest, we can go...there..." She trailed off again, her eyes uncontrollably returning to what was behind him. Charon didn't look back, still didn't need to see what was bearing down on them, only wrapped his arms around her an instant before the roaring cloud hit.

* * *

**The** entire world was a seething mass of brown, and Cort dimly thought that she had preferred being blind the first way it had happened; at least then she could still hear. Charon had pushed her to the ground after they had been swallowed up, and after feeling him fumble at her pack and what felt like forever, choking, cloying dust clogging up her nose and mouth, he had tied a torn strip of shirt over the lower half of her face, pushing her visor down as soon as he was finished. It offered some protection, as well as her sunglasses, which she jammed as tightly up the bridge of her nose as they would go. There was nothing the ghoul could do to protect his own eyes, apart from shutting them entirely, not even having eyelashes to screen part of the grit. Cort had patted at his face to make sure he had protected himself, and felt how tightly he had closed them, swearing to herself. The ghoul never being comfortable with wearing anything that restricted his vision, she hadn't bothered to keep any of the goggles they had scavenged, something she was now regretting in spades.

Now, curled up on the ground again with him trying to break the wind, her skin feeling like it was being slowly sanded from her body, she was at a total loss, not able to hear or see him, her Pip-Boy, or anything else. _ Can't see that, can't see the nose on my face. Oh God I can't stand this, I can't, the noise of it, it's screaming in my head, there's screaming in my head and I'm alone with it._ Suddenly, a wet, dirty _something_ pressed up under the shelf of her jaw, and she screamed, jerking away. Charon, not able to hear her either but more than able to feel the recoil, darted a hand out in the direction she had pulled away from, relaxing the brutal clench he had tightened it into when he realized he was gripping a handful of fur. Both of them had forgotten Dogmeat, which had been just as well, since the arrival of the storm had made him disappear entirely; it had saved Cort from falling into a dangerous set of hysterics over trying to find him. Digging her hand into his ruff next to Charon's, she tried to pull him closer as he barked, not precisely hearing the nose so much as feeling it, strangely muffled in the back of her head. Eyes irritated and streaming, she pulled harder as he resisted, then moved her hand over top of the ghoul's, terrified of losing track of the dog again and trying to get him to help.

* * *

**Dogmeat** dug his claws into the ground even harder as both worlds started tugging at his fur, bunching his haunches as he pulled back against it and trying to get them to move. Neither of them was getting it, and unlike the rest of his odd little pack, he could still partially hear them. Both were letting out streams of words they normally released when agitated, the big world angry and his first world panicked; one was good, and the other decidedly not. Angry was fine, as long as it wasn't allowed to get loose, although Dogmeat doubted the big world was foolish enough to start snapping at the storm like a stunned pup, even if he had been too stunned to realize it was coming(neither of them had understood what he had been trying to tell them either, and he wondered again, not for the first time, what either one would do without him). Panic was _not_ fine. With the way she sounded, once her arms were around him it would be next to impossible to get loose again, and she most likely wouldn't budge until the storm blew itself out, something he instinctively knew would take far too long.

Frustrated as another painful tug pulled at his neck, Dogmeat wrenched himself free and then darted back just as quick, closing his mouth around his first world's hand. She jerked, and he tightened his grip, apprehensively waiting to see if she would strike him. He didn't think so, but then he hadn't done this before either. This was next door to biting, would have _been_ biting if she had moved her hand any faster, and biting a world was very, _very_ bad. Inhaling half of the desert floor however, was worse, and he had to get the twits up and moving before he was too storm-addled to lead them. He knew how to, had done it before for his previous world(here he spared a rather fond, forgetful sort of thought for the man he had been with before, who had at least listened to him when he had sensed the big blows were starting to come), and would do so again.

He froze for a moment as the big world's hand suddenly wrapped around the top of his muzzle. This was the tricky part. Precisely timing it so it would fall after the big one got a good grip but before he could start prying him off and take what he was doing the wrong way, he slowly started pulling on his first, short, gentle, and overly exaggerated tugs, spelling it out for the pair as much as possible. Both hands relaxed, and he flicked his ears up once in a short burst of relief, before pressing them back down again. Comprehension would mean nothing if they wouldn't heed him. Feeling her other hand on the rim of his armour, he instantly let go of the one in his mouth and started pulling, unerringly pointing his nose in the correct direction as the big one fell in behind her.

The next hour was a slow, endless slog of invisible hills and gullies, short drops and steep climbs and detours around anything he couldn't go over, dumb, infallible instinct keeping him on the way he was going with his worlds strung out behind him, following their only moon. He had a few bad moments when they slid down a drop off he had misjudged, spending ages circling to herd them back together like spooked Brahmin from where they had sprawled apart. That had nearly done him in, the dust tearing at his poor nose and his first nearly tearing out his fur when she finally latched onto him again, taking forever to calm down and get moving again.

Finally reaching the building his first world had desired to find, he brought them close to the wall and moved briskly, running alongside it at the precise distance to keep his first from crashing into it as he headed for the doors they had entered the first time. Unfortunately, it was slightly too close for the big one, who thwapped face first into the corner, the force of the abrupt stop jerking his front paws off the ground. Feeling relieved that the ordeal was over and almost smug, Dogmeat kept tugging them along as soon as the man pushed aside from it, the big one's vigorous head-shaking telegraphing through his first and down to him. Sniffing at the corner of a Nuka-Cola machine as it emerged out of the brown swirling mess, he adjusted his course ever so slightly again and waited for the next impact, wanting to make sure the lesson was driven home. This was just what one got for not paying attention to him, to the good moon that he was. Tired, his ears ringing, his nose frothed with pinkish snot and dirt, he was still happy, knowing he would be fussed over and told his perfect words, be told again that he was her best boy. Hearing a muffled but entirely satisfying thud from behind, he let his ears twitch up again and lolled his tongue out in a grin, heedless of the dust.

Yes. Definitely the _best_.


	24. You're Making My Head Hurt

_ This is two chapters in two days, so if you haven't read in a while, make sure to flick back so you don't miss anything. :) Enjoy, I'm getting an aural migraine, a.k.a. the living death, and I won't be able to write properly once it hits me_. _Loki:I always thought dust storms would have been fun too, whole new thing to challenge you in-game. I mean, deserts do have weather, everywhere does!_

_

* * *

_

**Pushing **through the double doors and into one of the lobbies of the abandoned supermarket, Charon immediately turned as soon as all of them were through and planted a large hand on the back of each one. Shoving against them, the wind soared from a bellow to a high, whistling screech before abruptly cutting off to a muted roar as he forced them closed. Wiping his eyes, he finally opened them again as he pulled his shotgun loose, looking into the cave-like gloom of the building. "Cort."

Frantically swiping at her own eyes after moving her visor and glasses, Cort squinted blearily at her Pip-Boy. "Nobody in range, but it can't see all the way to the back. Too big. _Everything's_ too big." Still spooked and half-blind, she abruptly planted herself against one peeling wall as something fell over in the room beyond, sliding down it and staring at nothing. Charon took a good look at her, and then turned immediately to the dog.

"Stay here." Shotgun up, he silently slipped into the darkness, and Cort spent a long series of minutes alternately clutching her repeater and scrubbing at her eyes as she sorted her jangled nerves out. She had gotten them into a semblance of order by the time hoarse yelling followed by a quick pair of loud blasts boomed out from somewhere in the back of the store. Holding onto her gun so hard her hands squeaked on the metal, she called out, trying to keep from sounding too shaky.

"_Charon_?"

He called back from the darkness a second later. "Two raiders. Nothing else."

"Good. Now get back here so I can see you first, _then_ you can strip them off." Relaxing slightly, she turned back to Dogmeat, making herself sound as cheerful as possible to praise him and reassure herself. "Such a good boy, just the best boy, yes you are! You're, you're Momma's little pathfinder! You can find just anything, can't you."

Charon came back into the lobby with his arms already held out, Cort going airborne as soon as he entered the room and hitting him with an armoured clunk. Grunting appreciatively at the appreciable impact she made, he patted at her rear with his free hand as her legs wrapped around his waist, pleased at the greeting and her weight. _Good. Almost back to normal._ He had been feeding her at every available opportunity since leaving Rivet City, shorting himself whenever he could keep her from noticing, and he was gratified to see his efforts were paying off. He was _very _gratified to be feeling them. "Miss me?"

Cort wiggled happily as he squeezed. "Always. You're not hurt?"

"Not by them." Setting her down gently, Charon patted at his eyebrow and winced, pulling his hand back and looking at his bloodied fingertips before pointing one of them at what he correctly perceived to be the cause of it. "He fucking did that on purpose."

Flicking on her light, she inspected him from head to toe, looking for anything else that might possibly be injured, the ghoul obediently and exasperatedly turning around in place and dumping off his pack when she twirled a finger in the air. Calming down entirely after finding nothing, she rolled her eyes, plopped to the floor, and returned her attentions to Dogmeat. "Oh he did not. Stop picking on him and go check those raiders out. Maybe they have something nice."

"Fucking doubtful." Scowling as the dog grinned up at him, Charon's expression deepened even further when the two-toned eyes closed ever so slowly, the brown one shutting a full second ahead of the blue before both popped back open again. The ghoul fumed, considered, relented, and then spoke. The damn thing had been trying to warn him all morning, and things could have gone much worse without him. _Would_ have. "Good mutt." He rolled his own eyes as the dog whuffed and retreated back into the gloom to strip the raiders of anything useful as Cort kept up with the nauseating sweet talk she tended to use on the animal when he had performed well, Dogmeat now on his back and playfully twitching his feet away as she grabbed for them. It was disgustingly soppy behaviour, but the sound of it in the background was soothing to him.

The last time he had been caught in a dust storm, he had heard nothing that could be classed as even remotely soothing, before, during and definitely not after. _Fuck, the last time you stood in this shit someone was _making_ you do it. Didn't want to fucking think about it, and look where it got you. Look where you nearly got _her_, what you did_-

Standing between the crumbling shelves, he shook his head violently, pushing the thoughts of his training and the shortcomings of today entirely out of his head, automatically practicing the mental avoidance that he used to keep himself on an even keel. If he didn't think about it, then it couldn't bother him, which was fine as long as he made sure he didn't forget what both experiences had taught him; people, as a rule, were disgusting rats with next to no exceptions, and he had to pay better attention to the damned dog. He also apparently needed to think about shit he didn't want to recall, had to dredge through his long list of unpleasant memories to scrape up anything else he could potentially end up overlooking. Charon made a mental note to perform the protracted and distasteful task at the earliest opportunity, and to make sure he could fuss at Cort's hair while he did. She would let him, wouldn't ask why, and it would help.

Starting forward again, he continued on to the raiders he had shot and dropped down beside them. They were a mess of mismatched gear and pathetic weaponry, both having attacked him with nothing more than melee weapons, one a baseball bat and the other a pool cue. Poking through a ragged pack slumped over what was left of one of them, he grunted in surprise as a sudden glow peeped out from a hole in the side, and ripped it wider. The one who had screeched at him had found a Nuka-Cola Quantum, and he pulled it out, feeling even more surprised when the glow stayed in the rotten wad of fabric. He reached back in. They had found _three _of them somewhere, and he eyed them appreciatively, wondering if Cort would let him have one to try and build a grenade with; he was fairly certain the schematic she had given him was genuinely feasible, but one never knew unless one tried. He wouldn't go so far as to ask, but knew he probably wouldn't have to, a thought he found even more pleasing than the idea of making a new explosive.

Having left his pack in the lobby with her, he carefully stowed them in the larger pockets on his cargos, making sure they were entirely hidden so he could surprise her with them later, then turned back to search for anything else. He was cursing himself soundly an instant later as the doors they had come in through slapped open, Dogmeat barking at the same time. He had obediently followed her directive to return here instead of barricading it, assuming that she would do it as she normally did. Pushing up instantly, he rushed back for her as the doors groaned shut again, silent and swift, slowing down to stay hidden as he got a good look at what was going on. There were three Wastelanders, one short and two tall, and Cort was talking to them.

* * *

**Cort** hadn't forgotten about the doors, only assumed that the storm would have kept anything else out, and was in the middle of cursing herself as she tried to decide what to do next. She had swung her repeater up the instant the three figures came through the door, and held it on them as they turned and pushed the door shut, all of them straining to do what Charon had done in one firm shove. Panting, the one in the middle turned around, spotted her and jerked like she had gone ahead and shot them, prompting the other two to spin around and stare at her. She _thought_ they were staring at her, anyway. It was hard to tell.

Dressed in a mishmash of Wastelander clothing, all of them had rags wrapped around their exposed skin and, appropriately enough, hooded Stormchaser hats on their heads, the green goggles that normally sat on the brims firmly in place over their eyes. All of them also had hunting rifles, but none of them were reaching. She decided to hedge her bets, and chirped out a polite greeting while keeping her finger on her own rifle's trigger.

"Well hello! Lousy weather we're having, isn't it." They looked at each other, confused, her sunny greeting clearly not what they had been expecting. At least, she _thought_ they were confused. "There's room for everybody, if you want to come in. " They still said nothing, and she started to get irritated. "What, cat got your tongues along with your manners? Hello, meow, anything?"

One of the taller ones straightened up abruptly. "Wait. You _know_ what a cat is?"

"Yes." Cort brightened even further, hearing him stress his words carefully. It was a ghoul under the protective swath of rags, and if he knew about cats, he was most likely pre-war, and a lot less likely to think she was stunned or crazy for making references to things nobody else understood. Happy to have him to talk to, she posed another question, this one tactfully phrased in such a way to ask about his age while avoiding any direct mention of it. "Do you remember cows with only one head?" He was opening his mouth to reply when the other tall one cut him off, sounding upset.

"Damnit, Rufus! Now she knows!"

Cort looked at them blankly. "Know what?"

The first one shook his head. "Yeah, she knows my damn name now, thanks for that. And so what if she knows? We didn't come in here to act like friggin' mimes."

The last one, significantly shorter, gestured to her with one hand and spoke up, confirming that they were all ghouls and all male. "Look, she's got one of them wrist things on you told me about, she's from a whatdoyoucallit, a Vault. Maybe she _doesn't _know, she's not freaking out or anything."

"Hello?" Reminded of that particular piece of hardware, Cort twisted her wrist ever so slightly. She didn't need to check her Pip-Boy to know that Charon was most certainly right behind her by now, hidden in the gloom, but she did anyway, sparing a quick glance at the detector screen. _Yup. Nice green spot, big as billy-be-damned_. The three in front of her were also green, and she let her repeater drop back down, waving with her right hand while still prudently keeping the left on the trigger. "Guys?"

"Not _yet_. She hasn't really seen us yet."

"Yes I have, I'm sitting right here."

The first one -_Rufus_, she amended-,crossed his arms. "She looks hard up enough to have been around long enough to know."

Cort looked down at herself and then back up, offended. "Hey! You try and look like sunshine and roses after slogging through a fucking mudpit of a river and then getting swallowed by up by the dust-bunny from hell." She yanked her helmet off with her free hand and ran it vigorously through her hair, hit by a sudden, irrational need to straighten herself out. It didn't so much improve her appearance as make her resemble a dirty, addlepated porcupine. "At least I don't look like Claude freakin' Rains meets the Three Stooges. Did you want to be polite and say hello back, or just stand there and be total dicks?"

The short one piped up, tilting his head towards Rufus and pointing in her direction. "I think she looks nice. She's even got a _dog_." Dogmeat perked up at this reverential tone and whuffed approvingly, feeling it was appropriate.

"_She's_ gotten in our way."

Rufus moved himself slightly in front of the cranky tall one, obviously not liking his attitude. "No, she did not. She was here first, and we should just go. The last thing we need is a fight."

Cort straightened up at this and pointed back to him and the short one. "Nonono, you two can stay, I like you."

Go where? It's a total nightmare out there!" The short one again, sounding panicky.

Cranky spoke up, now trying to sound reasonable. "Look, there's only the one of them. I bet we can take her. Be better for us in the long run anyway, it's a breeder. She'll only make more of them."

Rufus sounded entirely disgusted with this. "Oh for Chrissakes."

Cort was definitely disgusted, and not a little infuriated at the sexist insult and the inadvertent reminder of her sterility delivered in such glowing terms. "Well, at least one dick it is then. Big capital D. Hi, Dick." She managed to snap out this witty retort, accompanied with a sarcastic little wave, before Charon snarled out from behind her, the big man having reached the limit of where he wanted to allow the encounter to go.

"I bet I can turn all of you rotting fucks into _pulp_." All three ghouls boggled for a moment, thinking that the deep rasping voice had somehow come out of Cort. They rapidly changed their minds when the barrel of a combat shotgun appeared well over her head, and all of them moved their eyes up in unison to where they expected the owner's head to be, rapidly jerking them up even farther a second later when he stepped entirely into the light. "The only thing you're taking is a fast fucking trip back the way you came."

Rufus edged himself in front of the small one. "Oh, God."

Rolling her eyes, Cort sighed briskly and slapped her free hand onto her knee. "Well, this is pleasant. I'm so glad we came back to the country."

She looked back as the Dick spoke over her head to Charon. "Hey brother, no need to get angry with us. There's room for everyone-" He scowled as she interrupted.

"That's what I said in the first place, Dick!"

"-as soon as we get rid of the smoothskin." He pointed to Cort.

Cort pointed back again, this time with a different finger. "Jump on it and spin, Dick."

The short one leaned around Rufus. "I'm starting to like her."

Charon slowly shook his head. "I'm starting to get a _shitting_ headache."

"Shut up, Eddie!"

Rufus threw his hands up in the air as the now named Eddie turned to Dick, sounding annoyed. "Well thanks, _Sam_!"

"No, he's a Dick."

Rufus absently pushed Eddie back behind him, taking note that Charon still covering them with a shotgun. "I definitely like her."

Eddie promptly popped back out again. "Well first off, who is she?"

More than a little stressed out, trying not to laugh and at somewhat of a loss, Cort shrugged and spat out the first thing that popped into her head, not knowing what else to do. "Who's on first?"

"..._What_?"

She tilted her head back to look at Charon, regarding him upside down. "No, he's on second."

Rufus shoved his goggles up, staring at her. "And third?"

"I don't know!" Cort grinned.

Letting out a short laugh, he shook his head. "Fellas, I don't think she's going to lose her cool over us. That is, if you can keep yours, Sam. Start by not opening your mouth again."

"Cort?" Charon flicked his eyes down to her as she tilted her head back again, feeling entirely exasperated. He had never had a great amount of patience for absurdity to begin with, and this entire affair was edging itself into completely batshit country. All three of the bastards had been more or less ignoring the scattergun aimed at them while they yattered on, Sam just staring at Rufus and Eddie, and Rufus and Eddie just staring at Cort, the latter of which jerked his head up at the sound of her name.

"Charon."

"What the hell are we doing."

"Making friends?"

"We are NOT your friends!"

"Then get the _fuck_ out."

"I want those two to stay."

Rufus and Eddie replied in tandem. "We want to stay."

"What? _I_ want to stay!"

"You can't, you're a Dick."

"Stop calling me that!"

"Well I could call you 'Asshole', but that'd be a pretty funny name for a dick to have. _Dick_."

Letting out a strangled bellow, Sam finally lost it, grabbing for his hunting rifle. "THAT'S IT!"

"Sam, don't you _dare_!" Lunging for him, Rufus grabbed both of his arms, struggling to keep him from reaching his goal and yelling. "Eddie you fluffbrain, help me! He's going to get us all killed!"

"Ah, shit." Cort whipped her repeater back up and aimed, grimly realizing she had taken her backbiting too far, and sick at the thought of killing him, no matter what he had said, never having even shot at a sentient ghoul before._ You and your big fucking mouth. Way to go, girl_. "Wrong move, Sam. Bye bye." She was within a half pound of pressure to lifting off the top of the ghoul's head when Eddie suddenly screeched, rushing towards her and ripping the rags off of his face as he did so.

"No, don't, _please_ don't! He's my friend!"

Cort's mouth fell open as she stared at him, and the barrel of her repeater dropped back down as Dogmeat started barking warningly at the advancing ghoul, driving him back almost instantly. _Sweet Mother Mary, it's Peter Pan of Apocalyptia instead of Never-Never Land_.

* * *

**Charon** eyed the twisting ghoul in front of him evilly, wanting nothing more than to simply shoot him, throw his companions out and be done with it. Cort had made things far too complicated for him to do so by liking two of them, and her current reaction to Eddie's unique appearance wasn't helping matters either. He would have to choose something non-lethal to take out the third without killing him, since offing the mouthy shit would most likely not sit well with the others, and therefore not sit well with _her_.

Swearing and wanting to get this loony shitshow over with as soon as humanly possible, he reached into a pocket and withdrew one of the bottles of Quantum he had found on the raider, flicked it around in his hand, and then pelted it at Sam's head, the bottle making an unsurprisingly hollow _klonk!_ noise against the top of his forehead before spinning into the air. Eddie went from staring at Cort to staring at Sam falling, to staring at him flat on the floor, while a startled Rufus fumbled and caught the glowing soda before it could crash into the torn linoleum.

* * *

**Snapping** her mouth rapidly shut as she realized what she was doing, Cort tore her eyes away from Eddie to stare at the bottle, wanting to look at anything else while she tried to come to grips with what she had seen. "Oh. Look, Dogmeat. Pretty."


	25. Boy, Interrupted

_Thanks for the lovely new reviews, folks! Rufus(along with Eddie and Sam, obvs) is an OC, and somehow just wandered out of the murk of my brain to insert himself into this story(I guess he wanted a cameo?). He'll be appearing later in the other one I'm writing at the moment, 'Gerry'. Eddie's here because of a 'fridge logic' moment I had after gameplay, and Sam's really just a dick._

_

* * *

_

**Kneeling** inside the large cavern of the Super-Duper Mart, Cort watched Eddie hover around the perimeter of her light as she worked on the gash in the still-unconscious Sam's forehead, and smiled to herself. He was staring at her whenever he thought she wasn't looking, and wasn't very good at hiding it. Taking another discreet peek at him, the little glance going unnoticed as he kept his muddy eyes on what she was doing, the smile turned into something sad. Rufus was pre-war, Sam was knocked out and therefore indeterminate for the moment, not that she expected him to tell her even when he wasn't, but Eddie...Cort pressed her lips together for a moment, then busied herself with swabbing the dirt out of the gash on Sam's head.

Eddie was turning right now. It had started some time ago(she couldn't be sure when, Carol having told her it differed for every one of them), since his ears were entirely gone, but there was still a ridge of cartilage in the middle of his nasal cavity, a cloudy ring of deep brown in his eyes, and most of his shaggy blonde hair was intact, as well as his skin. It looked more flaky and raw than anything else, like a sunburn run amok. There was no clear delineation between the patches of dermis and muscle yet, the two surfaces blending together like a fire-damaged painting. He was also young; if she was pegging it right, looking at him with a rather rusty but well-trained clinical eye, he was somewhere around sixteen or seventeen, his voice dropped but only a few inches taller than her. The shocking combination of both, a body barely started out and already rotting away, was what had ultimately stopped her from shooting Sam. "Do you want to watch what I'm doing? I can teach you how to clean something like this out properly."

He shrugged nonchalantly, swaggering a bit as he finally walked up to her. Eyeing the arrogant but gawky movement, Cort immediately thought of Butch. This was something else that had helped her make up her mind, watching him act puffed up and completely uncertain at the same time. He sounded the exact same way.

"I don't need to. I know how it works. I find radiation, I'm fine."

"Yeees, but wouldn't it be nice to get the crap out before you heal over top of it? I know how much that itches whenever you're not near any." She was fairly certain she still had a bit of something stuck in one of her legs from her adventure with Winthrop, there having been so much caked into her by the end of it, and waiting for whatever it was to finally dissolve or work its way out was driving her crazy. Knowing what it most likely was, she also tried not to think about it too much, only wallowed in relief whenever her Rad levels got high.

"How would _you_ know."

_Oh great, Einstein, how _do _you know_. Cort sassed back, sounding equally snobby. "'Cause Charon _told_ me."

"Why would he tell you anything? You're a smoothskin."

The last word came out like it was something dirty, and she shook her head. _Christ, what the hell happened to liking me?_ "Because he's _my_ friend."

"We're not supposed to be friends with you."

"And who told you that?"

Cort found herself fairly unsurprised when he pointed at the lump on the floor, resisting the urge to rip out what was left of Sam's greenish hair. She also found herself suddenly feeling old, having this conversation with him. _Thanks kid, so much._ "So what does _Rufus _say?" That tripped him up, and she smiled as he scrambled to come up with something to say back to her. "Yeah, I thought so. Now get over here, it's lesson time."

Immediately squatting down next to her, he straightened his shoulders and tilted his head, aiming for a disinterested tone and achieving the exact opposite. "Sooo. You're the lady on the radio?"

Cort pinched the line on her nose and heaved a sigh, not needing to clarify his question. _Lord help me, I think I preferred being called 'kid'. _"Yes, I am. Now be good, be quiet, and watch me."

He was, for all of ten seconds. "So. How old are you?"

_Criminy._ "I'm nineteen, as in not really very old at all."

"Oh." He appeared to parse that for a moment, surreptitiously moved three fingers along his knee, and then turned to her, the sudden brilliant smile on his poor degrading face breaking her heart. "Good!"

Cort made herself smile just as happily back, privately restraining herself from throttling Sam. She didn't want anyone to ruin the inside of Eddie as the outside went to hell. _Please stay nice. If there's more nice, it's easier for me to be_. "Yeah, good! Now come on and watch, we can't leave dipstick here oozing."

* * *

**Charon** was holed up in the lobby with Rufus keeping guard, Cort having vetoed his plan to barricade both sets of doors, just in case someone else who wasn't psychotic needed the shelter. He had insisted on tying Sam up before she tended to him, not trusting the man to be any calmer upon waking than he had been when he went down, particularly if he did so while she was jabbing her fingers into the hole in his head. Unsurprisingly, his companions had offered no objections, Charon snapping a rope between two massive fists apparently being a rather persuasive argument.

After he had knocked Sam out, she had promptly started barking orders like a little field marshal, Charon obeying them out of compulsive habit and Rufus and Eddie because they were more than a little thrown off by the preceding shenanigans. The fact that the first words out of her mouth had been 'alright, drag the asshole farther inside so I can stop his last braincell from leaking out' had also probably had something to do with it.

Now, Cort was working on a trussed up Sam farther inside the store, Eddie was hovering around Cort, and Rufus was sprawled out and looking at Charon. Charon was standing against the wall and staring impassively back, half-wishing that he had ended up shooting everyone or still outside in the dust storm. The other ghoul wouldn't stop _talking_.

"So...you're travelling together?" Rufus tilted up the brim of his hat and peered at him inquisitively. All three had stripped the rags from their heads, Rufus promptly slapping his hat back down over his ratty brown hair, peeping out from under it like an oversized degrading garden gnome.

Charon considered staying silent, letting out a stream of colourful language, or telling him to talk to Cort, and dismissed all three. Staying silent would most likely do nothing, insults might result in resumed hostilities, and hiding behind Cort in this situation would feel cowardly, the evasion something that he only liked to perform when he was uncertain how to handle someone properly. He knew how he wanted to handle this, but just wasn't permitted. Charon decided he would try a reliable fourth and well-favoured option; being a brusque, monosyllabic crank. "Yes."

"Where were you two headed off to?"

"Home."

"We were heading to Underworld. If you're heading deeper out, I have to warn you, it's not safe out there anymore."

Charon found this statement ludicrous enough to respond to in more detail. "When the fuck has it _ever_ been safe?"

"Those creeps in the black armour, the Enclave. You could go a whole day and not see anyone, but now it's next to impossible, it seems like they're everywhere. It's why we're travelling right now instead of waiting for the weather to settle down. It's not just us moving either, I've seen settlers on the move, even some smaller bands of raiders packing it out. It's one of the reasons I finally left _my _home. You _know_ it's heavy shit if those maniacs are going away instead of towards."

Any desire to snark at the other man dropped away at this information, and Charon started pressing for specific intel. "Where precisely did you see the Enclave? Did you spot any around Megaton? The outlying areas?"

"Various places on the way down from up North, camps, patrols. Last ones I spotted were two days ago, to the Northwest of Megaton, where it starts to get hilly. Four or five of the buggers, looking for something, I think. We didn't go too close to the town itself, place is full of Atomites. I've had more than enough of them over the years, and I didn't want them around Eddie or Sam. He's still too naive, and Sam. Well, Sam's just..."

"A fucking asshole."

Rufus choked back something that might have been a laugh and looked amused. "I was going to say overly sensitive, but that shoe probably fits just as well. What about you? If she's the one on the radio, then you've seen them too. How hard is it going to be for us to get where we're going?"

"You know how to get there through the Metro tunnels?" Rufus nodded, and he decided to be helpful in return. "Then not very, if you stay in them. They're in the city, around the Jefferson Memorial. Not in the Mall near Underworld. Other than that, I don't know. We didn't go looking." He snapped his head around, suddenly hearing Cort laugh, any desire to aid them running out of him. The short one was crouched directly alongside Cort, hand on her back as he leaned over a still insensible Sam to watch what she was doing, his raspy voice carrying back.

"Is he going to be okay?"

Charon's own lashed out. "Get your _fucking _hand off of her." The small ghoul jerked back from her like he had been burnt, Cort doing nothing aside from glancing with amused exasperation at Charon and apologetically at Eddie, before speaking kindly to him. Rufus carefully watched all three of them, his own face looking almost comically surprised before it became appraising.

"He's fine. He'll just have one big fat headache. Goes with the big fat head."

Rufus barked out at him. "Eddie, get your damn ass over here."

Eddie dragged himself up, shooting a longing look back to Cort as he obeyed. "What did I do wrong _this_ time?"

Rufus flicked up the brim of his hat with one thumb to look at him directly as he flopped down, mentally totting this particular faux pas down to tell him about in detail later and speaking in an undertone. "You, young sir, put your hand on his girl, and he didn't like it much."

Now it was Eddie's turn to looked surprised, and he whipped his head back to Cort before turning to look at Charon with something akin to wonder. "Sooo. Is it any different from before? Being...you know. _With_ a girl?"

Charon stared back, his face unreadable. "I don't know."

"_What_? How can you not kn-" He stopped abruptly as Rufus gave him a smart whack up the side of his head, then rounded on the older ghoul indignantly, cutting off again when he saw how unimpressed he looked. "Hey! What was _that_ f..._oh_." He turned back to Charon, even more wide-eyed. "Are _all _the girls in Vaults like that?"

Charon narrowed his. "I _highly_ doubt it."

Rufus decided to cut the kid off before he could ask any more questions that could result in some sort of bodily harm. "Eddie, just go...I don't know, go clean up or make supper or something. Scram."

"Fine, fine."

Rufus watched him jam his hands in his pockets and slump off before turning back to Charon. "Sorry. He's not very old, either way. Hasn't learned his lessons yet." He shook his head. Eddie hadn't learned much of anything, aside from knowing how to shoot straight. Whoever had raised him before he and Sam had gathered him up hadn't done much in the way of teaching him how things were generally expected to work, sheltering the everliving hell out of him in the process(Rufus had no idea who they had been and where they had gone, Eddie merely saying that he was sixteen over and over when he had first found him, as if that was supposed to be some sort of valid explanation. Once he had started babbling about needing cave fungus, Rufus had stopped asking).

He couldn't decide if that had been a disservice or not, watching Eddie blunder around trying to interact with people, ghoul or otherwise, but still tried to keep Sam from jading the kid entirely. Eddie was taking to being a ghoul better than he expected, all things considered, and he wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible, for however much time the kid had left. Rufus was attributing this unexpected behaviour either to his upbringing, or the fact that teenaged boys tended to have a macabre obsession with gory things, his own self apparently included.

Charon grunted. In a way, the little squirt reminded him simultaneously of Cort and Gob. "I can tell." Looking over, he eyed Cort and then swore to himself. She had finished with Sam, and now seemed to be fussing around with nothing in particular, Eddie back to circling her like she was some sort of unidentified landmine. He swiveled his head back to Rufus as he spoke up. He had pushed his hatbrim up again, and was now peering at Cort.

"She's one strange little smoothskin."

"I'm aware." Charon, incredibly relieved as the oddball in question finally came over and sat down, instantly placed his legs where she could lean on them, crossed his arms and visibly shut himself off, his face going blank and seemingly fixing his eyes on nothing.

Rufus got the oddest feeling, watching that. It was like he was aggressively guarding the girl while hiding behind her at the exact same time. The first was easy enough to understand, women in the Wasteland tending to be rarer than men, and those that had one were usually extremely protective of them, treating them as either queens or commodities. He supposed one that would open her legs for a ghoul could be considered both, worth and made of solid fucking gold(_pardon my awful pun_, he thought) either way.

The _second_, though. Rufus wasn't sure if he could wrap his head around it, and supposed he didn't need to, but it was a long life with too few puzzles that didn't somehow end up with a solution of maiming or death. He brought himself out of his musings as the girl started asking him questions.

"You're going to Underworld? Do you know anybody there?"

"Yeah, I know Quinn. Met him a while ago, long and long." Rufus raised an eyebrow as she beamed at him crazily, suddenly getting the distinct feeling that her elevator didn't quite go to the top floor.

"Nifty! So, do you remember cows-" Anything else she might have been inclined to say about unmutated bovines was cut off by a disgruntled set of thumps followed by an indignant, high-pitched yell.

"Why the _FUCK_ am I tied up?"

Cort groaned and rolled her head towards Sam, somewhat regretting that she had left a rag soaked in glowing water sitting on his head. "Why the fuck aren't you gagged, there's a better question."

"_Fuck_ you! Eddie, get over here and let me loose!"

"Uuuh..." The small ghoul looked up from where he had been riffling around in his pack as Sam flipped around like an epileptic pillbug, obviously trying to keep from making eye contact with anyone in an effort to keep himself from having to do something. He didn't particularly want to let Sam loose. When he wasn't getting yelled at or whacked, he was having a good time here, Cort being the closest person to his own age he had met in months. She also wasn't screaming at him, or looking away, or doing anything else mean, and as much as he worshipped Sam, he didn't want him to screw it up, either, since she was a _she_. He had just started getting interested in those, and wasn't so naive that he didn't know his opportunities for meeting them had been severely curtailed. "Rufus told me to make supper. Or something. Mm-maybe after that."

"EDDIE!" Sam blinked and then squinted, finally noting that Cort was curled up against Charon's legs. "What the fuck is this? You're _with_ that smoothskin?"

"He's _extremely_ with her Sam, so I'd watch your mouth." Rufus shook his head and mumbled, exasperated. If he wanted to get technical, Sam was older than he was, not that he acted like it. "Christ, it's like having the kids I never wanted."

Sam stared at them with a mix of disgust and horror. "With her? Her with _him_?"

"Yes, Sam, with, as in with him, as in involved, together, etcetera and soforth."

Thumping around further, he looked at Cort accusingly. "Sure you are. You're probably stringing him along like a dog. Manipulative _slick_."

Cort raised her eyebrows before working them together. _Well, that's a new one_. Brows scrunching together far enough for the little line to pop up between them as Rufus slapped a hand over his face, Cort turned and tilted her head up to Charon. "Am I stringing you along?"

Charon tilted his head down, replying in a completely deadpan tone of voice. "Is that another phrase for 'going at me like a damned rabbit'?"

"Apparently?"

"Do it more then, please."

Eddie called over to Rufus, who was now rubbing a hand vigorously over his mouth, sounding sweetly confused. "What's a rabbit?"

"Ah, I'll tell you later."

"Everything's _always_ later."

Cort looked up at Charon and giggled, who glared back at her. Sam, finally realizing he was on the losing side and staying there, retreated into a morose silence and flipped himself over as Cort went back to asking about cows, fuming to himself and swearing that at some point, he would get the little bitch back.

* * *

**The** storm ended somewhere around mid-afternoon, and the two groups parted in the rubble-strewn parking lot outside, the sunlight still hazy with dust and the three ghouls firmly swaddled up in their rags again.

"We can come with you, if you want. Make sure you get there." Cort tried to keep herself from sounding too reluctant. The last thing she wanted to do was an about face, but she genuinely liked Rufus and Eddie, the former of which was now holding onto two hunting rifles.

Sam, sans one rifle and rubbing his wrists exaggeratedly, snapped out at her from several feet away, Charon having made it clear that he wasn't getting any closer without losing anything. "We don't need your damn company!"

Rufus looked skyward briefly as if searching for some kind of existential aid, and then shook his head. "We'll be fine. You two have already cleared everything out for us, more or less, and there won't be much moving around right now. We'll see you if you get down there again." He turned without another word, Sam immediately laying into him. Eddie fell in behind as Rufus looked up again, walking backwards, flapping an arm, and nearly falling over his own feet.

"Bye Cort!"

Smiling, Cort flapped her own arm back. "Bye! See you later!" She let the smile fall off as he stumbled around, and pressed against Charon, one hand reaching down for Dogmeat's ears. "Will he get older? Bigger, I mean."

Charon looked down to her, and then back up, replying a moment later. "No."

Cort watched as they slipped from sight entirely, Sam turning to give her one final dirty look and Eddie one last goofy wave before they disappeared around the side of a hill, then spoke again. "I've never seen a ghoul that young before. Like, younger than me, I mean."

"They don't generally last very long."

"Do I want to know why?"

Charon looked at her, considering. Many were killed by smoothskins or even some ghouls, too horrified to accept them. Most killed themselves, the usual resiliency of childhood somehow not quite as capable of dealing with the idea of being a living monster as apathetic adult resignation was. Adults were better at finding a way to cope, could find a _why_ and take it like a bitter pill with a 'well, _that_ figures' attitude to wash it down with. Children, for the most part, could not, and the inability drove some of them insane.

Then there were the physical issues. If the little squirt had aged enough beforehand, he would simply stay as he was, anatomically frozen but his mind maturing as he grew more experienced. If it was too early, if he had had too much growing left to do, he would simply burn out as it tried to finish, eventually falling apart entirely as his body ate itself to death. He would make Patchwork look like a prime specimen in comparison. It was something all ghouls eventually found out about or knew already, either directly or by overhearing as he had, and never, ever spoke of again if they could help it. If Cort had asked questions-

He gave a mental snort. _When_ she had asked questions about being ghoulified, she either hadn't thought to ask about this, or had been tactful enough not to. Apparently, no one else had mentioned it either, which made sense considering the people she would have felt comfortable about asking. He couldn't have seen any of them being cruel enough to say anything to her. He decided he wouldn't be the one to speak about it now. If Eddie wasn't there when they returned to Underworld because of any of those reasons, well. He could explain it then, and have the rest of the others there to help, not begrudging their involvement in her care for this particular matter. Reaching up, he tugged on a tuft of her hair, slid his fingertips behind her clipped ear. "No."

"Will he..." She trailed off.

"Better chance than most. Carol'll probably latch onto him as soon as she spots him. Drive that witch of hers fucking nuts." Cort brightened visibly at this, and he nudged her into motion. "Come on. We need to go visit that idiot bartender, unless you need to try poisoning yourself again."

"_Why_, you want your boots painted?"

"See if I help you again." He frowned, watching her slow down nearly to the point of stopping as she began to berate him.

"That was _helping me_? I'd hate to see what your Goddamn idea of hindrance would be, I bet it's _fabul_-"

Wanting to kill two birds with one stone, Charon rolled his eyes skyward and made the hurking noise again, this time jerking his shoulders spastically along with it. Face blanching, Cort immediately shut up, gripped her repeater tighter and increased her speed towards Megaton. Gratified, the ghoul lengthened his stride accordingly, and followed contentedly behind.


	26. Foreplay

_Is the suspense killing you yet? It's killing me, I've been sitting on this since chapter 34 of OotD. Thanks for the new reviews and favs/alerts!_

* * *

**Stockholm** pushed away the last of the dust piled up inside his guard tower, swearing and sneezing. He had been holed up in the Common Room during the storm, something not so much related to the fact that he lived in the scaffolding and was effectively homeless while they raged on, but that the regular townspeople could only take so much of him at one time; once he had someone to talk to, he never shut up. Someone new might have thought this was a result of spending so much time alone in the scaffolding, seeing as he had little to no direct contact with anyone, but the opposite was true. He had been put up there to be kept from having too _much_ contact, Simms concerned that someone would finally lose it and shoot him in a fit of temporary insanity sparked by immense irritation, the final tipping point being the amazing fact that even Moira Brown had broken down and told him to clap his trap. Granted, it took her five hours, but there it was. The man was a crack shot, scrupulously dutiful in what was a boring, unrewarding job, and the verbal equivalent of Chinese water torture.

Finally getting himself settled, not bothering to beat the dirt out of his mattress since the storm today certainly wasn't the last, Stockholm settled himself down to see if anything had changed in the microcosm of his currently moonlit world. "Rocks, yup. Sky, yup. Robot, yup. Beggar...beggar..._HEY MICKEY!_" He nodded as a startled, frowsy head suddenly popped up out of the abandoned bathtub down the slope, sending a dirt-covered blanket flying. "There he is, in the bathtub, slept through it, awake now, beggar, yup. Hey, wind even blew those damn ant carcasses away! Something new!" Satisfied that all was well in his tiny universe, he started watching the remaining loose dust being pushed around by a few last gusts of wind, looking for shapes in the glittering swirls for entertainment. It was the only thing he currently had to do, since his radio had been mysteriously shot out three weeks ago, and for whatever bizarre reason, Lucas was having an inordinately hard time finding him a new one.

There were animal shapes, and food shapes, and people shapes, and sometimes just pretty whirls, the motes looking like tiny water droplets on a smear of black grease. Stockholm perked up. The people shapes he had seen hadn't shifted into something else, and were instead resolving into solid forms, figures pushing through the skirling dust. Squinting, he lazily brought up his rifle just in case. Anyone travelling during storm season would either be some poor soul caught short or, more likely, a complete and total nutbar. He was hoping for the latter, nutbars tending to be more entertaining. Seeing the wavering mass of arms and legs resolve into someone short, someone tall, and someone that was furred with four legs, he grinned. "Well alright, something different altogether! It's the Vault kid, Cort. Things around her are interesting, maybe I'll get some interesting."

Watching them come up, Cort pausing to hold a bottle of water over the bathtub and prompting a grubby hand to pop out for it in another poof of dust, he decided it already was. They were over-loaded to hell just like last time, packs overstuffed and weapons tied on like bipedal and one miniature pack Brahmin, but this time both people were grinning, and their clothes were changed again. She had her wrist-jobbie up, and the light was splashing over her chest, green on green. Turning, he called down to Simms, spotting the sheriff's wide hat after a moment. He was just about to head into his house, perched to the right of the gate. "HEY LUCAS! Cort's back!" Stockholm watched the hat jerk up immediately. "Looks like she joined Reilly's Rangers!" He considered that she might have just shot them for their clothes, but it seemed kind of pointless after rescuing them and letting them run around for a few weeks, so he left that mental pearl out of his report.

Stockholm fidgeted as Simms meditatively ran a hand along the brim of his hat before replying. "Huh. Well, go on and open the gates for her, wind should have settled enough by now." Immediately shut as soon as signs of a storm had kicked up, they were left solidly closed until everything had calmed down, the protective dome shape of the town turning it into a tempest in a teapot if they were left open, making a mess and ripping the lighter scrap that the buildings were made of apart in some cases.

Turning, Stockholm paused his hand over the trigger for the massive sheets of re-purposed metal and then turned back to call down once more, deciding it wouldn't be very polite to interrupt what they were doing with the hellish racket the things made. That, and he wanted to watch. She was being different again. "Sure thing, just have to wait for her to finish frenching the ghoul."

"..._WHAAAT_?"

* * *

**Backing** into the shadows of his own house to keep her from spotting him immediately(and _why_ was he doing that, he asked himself, it was _his_ damned town), Simms waited for Cort to come through the inner sets of doors while trying to figure out what kind of apology to give her about the scatterbrained sentry before she could disappear into her own house. Chances were she hadn't heard him, calling down into the bowl as he had, and Simms thanked whatever there was to thank that there hadn't been anyone else out to hear him either, everyone either asleep or holed up from the storm. If she had, though, he had to do something to smooth it over before she had any other reason to get prickly at him. He had been trying to figure out how to fix the damage he had done, not able to just say the hell with it since it was technically his own damned fault, and finding out that her father was now dead hadn't helped his conscience any either. Simms had genuinely liked him in the short time he had been there, and genuinely liked his daughter, for all that she acted like an insufferable, headache-inducing brat whenever he went near her. Seeing the doors swing open, he started forward, then ground to a halt after only a handful of steps, Cort having just gone from migraine status straight into aneurysm territory. _Oh sweet hell. What do I do with this, now._

Yes, the ghoul was still with her, and watching him made it obvious that Stockholm hadn't finally let his cheese slide off his cracker. The mercenary wasn't just with Cort, he was _really_ with her, laid out under the moon for anyone to see in literal black and white, illuminating the shape of his body and the look on her face. He was still moving with the precise and careful stride he had last time, unobtrusive but laced with quiet menace, and if he hadn't noted the location of Simms and his relation to the girl on entering along with planning out at least two ways to kill him, Lucas was a giant pink Radscorpion.

He knew the man had seen him somehow, white eyes in a ragged face fixing on him instantly and staying for too long to be an accident, pinning him with a neutral open stare instead of a searching squint. What he was _also_ doing, with no less precision or care, was subtly herding Cort towards the most tactically sound route to her house, which was why the sheriff had finally accepted what Stockholm had shouted out to him instead of assuming it was a sign his brains had gone off like bad meat. The merc, one of the biggest, meanest damn bastards Simms had ever seen in his life, was gently patting and nudging the girl on her way as if she were some fragile, ambulatory little treasure. _His_ treasure.

Simms supposed if he was involved with the girl, not that there was much _if_ left about it at this point, then that was exactly what she was to him, thinking of the way his wife had made him feel before he had lost her. The man being a ghoul probably only made the feeling even worse, or better, depending on what angle you wanted to approach it from. Looking down at them with a grim expression on his face, Simms jammed his hands in the pockets of his battered leather duster and tried to decide how he wanted to approach this.

The idea didn't bother him, aside from a rather gut-wrenching and reflexive feeling of disgust, one that he tamped down immediately. For all that he had lied to Cort and his dishwater grey political dealings, he was still a decent man, one with an out-dated moral code plucked from tales of the Old West working in tune with surprisingly modern sensibilities. As far as he was concerned, what grown people did with themselves and with each other was their own business, and as long as all parties were amenable to whatever was going on, it didn't disturb him. The thought of the pretty little thing with the merc _might_ have, if it wasn't so obvious he was doting on her, not beating her or something else disreputable, like one would be inclined to expect out of something like him if they didn't know how to really see what they were looking at.

Running as a Regulator before he settled down, the informal self-appointed police of the Capital Wasteland, Simms had spent a long life looking at, tracking down and judging people, and he saw nothing in them to bother him personally. What did bother him, what bothered him a _lot_, was what kind of problems he was going to end up with when other people saw what he was seeing now. The pair clearly didn't give two shits about who saw what they were to each other, which just made _perfect_ damn sense, considering who it was, and would create no end of unrest with the local populace. Simms shook his head, caught between so many different rocks and hard places he wondered why the hell he had ever settled into the town, and then reminded himself that he knew exactly why. A safe town was a safe place for his son, and after Harden's, the safety of the town was his first priority. While nearly half the population of Megaton were dingy but relatively peaceful Atomites who would most likely have a joyous fit and think the girl was some kind of prophet, the other half were regular, normal, down to earth people. Namely, a pack of partially civilized apes who could turn into brain-dead, violent morons at the drop of a hat. The only reason the entire town wasn't in an uproar already from Stockholm's guileless report was a convenient convergence of foul weather, the late hour, and fair luck.

He had already had his ear bent by citizens upset that the girl had brought the ghoul in in the first place, not that there had been many; not many people actually _cared_, Simms included. Everyone was used to a ghoul being in town already, the kid was nice(to everyone _else_, anyway), had disarmed the bomb and had growing celebrity status on the radio, and nobody wanted to risk Cromwell getting into a froth over religious intolerance. _This_ though. Simms shook his head, watching the big ghoul lift Cort and spin her before they disappeared into their house.

"This is something I have to think about, long and hard. Because tomorrow is going to be one long, long day." Taking his hands out of his pockets, Simms ran one over a very tired-looking face and went inside, deciding he was finished for the day. Whatever happened, he wanted to face it with a full night's sleep. A course of action would be come clear to him in the morning like it always did, he'd get up early so he could get the jump on her first thing, and he would settle things out with the kid once and for all. She wasn't stupid, and would have to see some sort of reason. He just didn't have one yet.

Lost in complicated thought, the possibility that _Cort's_ day wasn't finishing at the same time his did never even occurred to him.

* * *

**Still** breathless from the spin Charon had twirled her into, Cort unlocked her door and shouldered through it. "Wadsworth, we're ho_OOhmyGOD_." Gape-mouthed, she stared up at the ceiling, the ghoul behind her reaching for his shotgun at her startled tone. Seeing what had set her off, he paused and then blinked in surprise at it as the Mister Handy puttered up from the corner he had shut himself down in.

"Welcome home, Madam, Sirs. Does my addition meet with your approval?" His eyestalks twitched as Cort's mouth did. "I do hope I was not presumptuous in installing it, Madam."

"No, Wadsworth it's, it's..." She trailed off, reaching one hand up as a smile broke out on her face. Hanging from the light fixture at the top of the house was a delicate, gauzy confection made of the salvaged wire she had let him have. It was a positive cacophony of different colours, shapes and hues melding in and out of each other as it slowly whirled in the draft she had let in, flowers and faces and animals appearing and disappearing in the vagaries of light and motion along with tiny flashes of slick, muted rainbow from where his flamer had brazed the thin metal together. "It's _beautiful_." Cort pushed up on her toes and let out a childlike laugh, softly clapping her hands.

"Thank you, Madam. You are far too kind." The robot let his eyestalks twitch again and putted higher for a moment, pleased. He had put his best effort into the sculpture, working on it for ages to get it right, relieved at having been allowed the personal concession and wanting to impress her so he would be allowed to continue. He was gratified to see that his attention to detail had paid off. Working well was its own reward, he was programmed to think, but having direct praise from the head of the household was illogically and wonderfully pleasing nevertheless. What came out of her next was even more delightful.

"Can you make more? _Please_? We brought you all kinds of wire back, I remembered."

Wadsworth dipped lower before popping back up in a propellant-powered bow, inordinately relieved. He was well aware that the quirky behaviour he was displaying was a sign of degrading programming, thankfully the _only_ sign as of yet, and being allowed to obey the queer compulsion had halted his mental rot temporarily. Being permitted to keep obeying it meant that he could continue functioning for the foreseeable future. His current mistress being quirky herself, he had taken the risk of asking for something that would normally see him returned to RobCo for a complete scrub of his memory banks, insanity only slightly but still less desirable than complete obliteration, and it had thankfully paid off. "Of course Madam! And do forgive me for being delinquent upon your arrival. Is there anything you and the Sirs may require this evening?"

* * *

**Self** and companions de-armoured, hair detangled and face washed, Cort found herself inordinately happy and relatively at peace, looking around at her little home. Wadsworth had sorted everything and was dutifully cleaning armour before turning to the mountainous snarls of wire they had brought home, Dogmeat was herding an empty shell casing around in circles on the floor with his nose, and Charon was doing his level best to herd her up the stairs and out of her clothes as Cort did her best to stop him. Laughing(and oh that felt so good to do right now, so _normal_), she pushed at him as he managed to pull her belt open.

"Come on, quit that."

Charon frowned as she wiggled away. "Why? I want to." Hooking a finger in her pocket to keep her from getting away, he managed to get her pants button undone. He was more than capable of just hauling her up to bed bodily, but this was proving to be much more enjoyable. He had watched her play something she called 'tag' with the mutt on the way back to Megaton, and had decided that chasing her was an attractive activity he could adapt to a variety of situations and speeds. This was enjoyable enough, but the idea of going after her at the proper full run was such an absolutely intoxicating concept he wanted to try at the first tactically sound opportunity. It was already making him want to say the hell with it and fling her over his shoulder.

Nimbly ducking under his arm as he was caught up with trying to get her zipper down, she slipped down the stairs and did everything back up."I want you to get the beds together, I'll be back in a little while."

"What? Where are you going?" He had an idea of where, but Charon wanted to keep her inside for a bit longer, at least several hours, maybe days, and entirely to himself. The robot's pleasant surprise had made her almost blissfully happy, and when she got happy, she got wickedly creative. "Don't tell me, the damned bar?"

Cort turned, looking suddenly shy. "No, that's closed by now, I'll have to see Gob later. Where_ I_ am going, is to sit in the bomb pool and get irradiated to hell."

"_What_?" Brows knotting together, he descended the rest of the stairs by twos and started plucking at her clothing, this time concerned instead of aroused. "Where the fuck are you hurt, why didn't you fucking _say_ anything?"

Laughing again, she grabbed one of his large thumbs in each hand and pushed him gently away. "Quit that, I'm not hurt."

Charon stared at her, consternated. "Then why the hell..." He trailed off as she bit at her lower lip, blushing and tugging at his own belt. Charon caught on to what she was planning, and smiled back. "_Oh_."

"Yes, _oh_." She had first thought about being intimate with him while irradiated the first time they had been together, but circumstances had always managed to foul things up, it being either too inconvenient or too risky to get or stay that way, or ending up too closely quartered with Dogmeat. _But now I have a house, and a bomb, and two wonderful, far apart floors. Perfect. _Cort smiled as Charon tilted his head down to hers, pushing up on her toes to meet him halfway.

"I didn't want to ask you to do that. Just for that."

"But you wanted to try it."

Reaching up, he closed his eyes and started tracing little circles down the side of her neck as her hands slipped around his waist, thinking about how hot she would feel against him. "Yes. Very much."

"Right then. I'll be back in a bit..." Cort slipped in a reassurance as he frowned again. "...And right out front where you can see me if you want. The water's not that high, but it'll ah, get me there. Get busy moving the furniture hmm?" Slipping from his grasp and out the door before she turned any redder or got too wound up to leave, Cort quietly made her way down to the base of the crater, taking off her boots and socks when she got to the edge of the water. Walking in after fastidiously rolling up her pant legs, she checked her Pip-Boy, shrugged, then plopped down on her rear with a satisfying splash, freshly-deposited sediment whirling up around her. _What the hell, clothes are all coming off anyway._ It would still take a while, but she found she would rather kill some extra time rather than suck back water Cromwell stood around in all day. _Fanatical foot-water, yum. Not that it'd be clean if he didn't wade around like a prophetic stork, but I can always get Charon to give me a wash first._

Resting her arms on her knees and wiggling as she planned out her evening with the ghoul, she looked around the town as the radiation tickled comfortably around her waist. It was peaceful and pretty in the moonlight, and since it was so late, there was no one to look at her funny for the odd behaviour, and no funny cultists looking to make her their next convert. _Considering I'm sleeping with a ghoul, I think I'm setting a fine enough example for those bozos already._ This lofty thought was quickly sullied when Cromwell suddenly popped out of his church like an ill-omened evangelical mushroom. Cort let her head drop onto her forearms, not raising it again until she heard him splash in beside her. As always, he was smiling beatifically, looking like he was filled with purpose and short a full load at the same time.

"Good evening my child! You come to bask in the Glow of Atom?"

"Yeeeah. That's what I'm doing." Looking up, Cort resigned herself to having a little bit of crazy with her evening, idly supposing that it wasn't really a full day without it and blithely ignoring the fact that it had already been stuffed full in an attempt to stay positive. _Well, we're home now, so at least it can't get any worse than thi...ah, crap._


	27. Hurt Me More Than it Hurts You

_Ever wonder just why Charon hates Yao Guai so much? In this chapter is why.__Thanks for the new reviews! Next chapter is Cort's big entrance, so don't nobody die of suspense. ;)_

_

* * *

_

**Watching** the water ripple around her as she twiddled her thumbs, Cort was starting to come within an inch of just plunging her face in and sucking up a gulletful, having listened to Cromwell drone on in her ear for what was an almost interminable length of time. He had gone from talking about Atom, to talking about the blessed of Atom, about those _waiting_ to be blessed by Atom, and had gone through several badly composed homilies about the Great Division before winding into a speech about supporting the common good. She was slowly coming to realize, in between the impulses to submerge herself out of self-defence, that Cromwell wasn't so much sniffing around her soul as trying to ferret out her caps.

"Many blessings would be upon you, my child, if you should choose to grace us with a donation." Cort looked up as he gave her another loopy smile, then returned to staring at her muddied toes, and wondered what to do. Charity was nice. She liked charity, and was of the opinion that there was far too little of it in the world she found herself living in, but one other salient fact had percolated through to her as she sat on her ass in the muck, something that made her firmly decide she would not be giving hers to the Atomites to distribute. Cromwell was shamming everyone, at least partially.

_So that's how he does it, stays out here all Goddamned day. The little rat fink cheater; protection for the faithful from Atom my ass._ Fiddling with her Pip-Boy in an attempt to distract herself, she had brightened the contrast slightly to read some of her notes while she flipped back and forth from her Geiger counter. Doing that had highlighted something shiny above her, and Cort being Cort, her eyes had homed in on it faster than a savage dog on a Brahmin steak. Tied up under the hem of Cromwell's shirt, something that only someone batty enough to sit under him would see, were two fat bags of Rad-Away, the tubing attached to them disappearing down into his pants like a pair of anaemic snakes.

She wasn't quite sure what to think of it to begin with, aside from deciding that it was grossly hypocritical of the man, although dropping dead probably wouldn't make for a very strong argument towards getting your devout self clicking hot. Puzzling at it, Cort thought she might possibly be slightly angry. She had no problem with making donations to things, being inclined to share with others anyway, but the idea of it being used as bait for a dangerous philosophy made her feel rather ill; the idea of it being used in falsehood just flat out pissed her off. She had never been fond of any type of organized religion, it always seeming to make things that should be simple entirely too complicated in everything she had read about it, seeing it as the spiritual world bogged down needlessly by dogmatic middle management(whatever happened when she died, Cort didn't think she would reach wherever she was going and find out it was run by a pack of metaphysical bean-counters. At least she hoped not).

It was an odd little attitude cobbled together from the deeply clinical character of her father and his desire to instill something of her mother's beliefs in her, to the best of his ability(the blasphemous swearing was a habit that James had inadvertently taught her while she was learning to talk, to his unending chagrin, and had never managed to get her to shake loose). As such, Cort approached her interpretation of faith as ruthlessly as a battlefield surgeon; inspect every part of it, leave anything that worked, and amputate the rest. At the moment, the only thing keeping her from amputating Cromwell's tongue out of offence and irritation was the fact that she already knew he would be automatically on her side in regards to Charon, no matter how much genuine faith he actually had in his particular deity. Finding herself in yet another moral grey area, she decided she still didn't much like it. _Why can't I have a simple, uncomplicated, black and white day. Just one, is all I'm asking. Never going to happen, is it. Why me?_

Looking back up from this eternally unanswerable existential question, she blinked, her attention grabbed by the sudden silence. The man was still waiting patiently for an answer. "Oh, ah. Blessed already, thanks. Livin' with a ghoul, etcetera, et al. And I have a pet. There's expenses. I'll need to pay for his shots soon. Or something."

"If a monetary contribution is not possible, we could always make do with your time, child. The Church could find work for you both, you and the Blessed of Atom."

Cort stifled a snort. _Oh yeah, that'd fly over real well. I can just see Charon as a missionary for people who _want _to be ghouls and blow everything else sky-high. Well, no, he'd probably want to watch the explosion for informational purposes. That I can see._ "Thanks very much, but no, we're enjoying the quiet life." Cort blinked again at the patent absurdity of that statement.

"More can always be done to further the cause, by both you and he."

Exasperated, not quite irradiated enough yet for her liking and making up her mind that she was not going to let her evening be spoiled any further, she decided to point out just how much she was already doing. _Fine, let's really bake your noodle. If I can't shut you up, maybe I can give you a heart attack out of friggin' apoplectic joy_. "I'm already doing he, I mean _him_. I think that's as done as I can _get_." Cromwell looked at her blankly, her oblique statement obviously not sinking in. _Ah, fuck it._ She slowed down and emphasized her words, like she was trying to speak to someone of slow wit. "I'm having _sex _with a _ghoul_." Charon helpfully chose this point to check on Cort's current status, coming out and leaning on the railing, then frowning as he spotted Cromwell beside her. She waved back in response, giving him an okay sign and then a shooing gesture, which she also used to direct the preacher's attention with. "That one there."

Cromwell looked from her, to Charon's retreating figure, and then back to her, his mouth hanging open like a busted door. He snapped it shut long enough to start talking. "You, ah, oh. You are, uh, _consort_ to one of the blessed of Atom?"

Cort sighed and waited for the penny to drop entirely. "Yup."

His face went carefully blank again as he processed this, before looking so blindingly, deliriously happy that Cort wondered if he was going to pop and mess the front of his pants. Hit by a sudden wave of disgust, she stuck her tongue out and made a small _'bleh_' noise. _Oh God brain, no. Just no. Bad brain, never go there again._ Pushing that unwanted thought out as Cromwell started praising what seemed to be everything in existence, a rather sobering one took its place, and she cut him off with a poke to the shin. Just because she wasn't willing to do anything for them, didn't mean that she couldn't get them to do something for _her_. "Look...if-if anything ever happens to me, will you make sure he's safe here? I told Simms my house was his if I never came back someday, but I don't know if that would stick. I need you to make sure he's taken care of, if I...can't, anymore." _If I die, and he doesn't. If I finally slip under. It if eats me._ Now the man looked positively overstuffed, bursting with haughty pride. Cort wondered if anyone had ever informed him that holy men were supposed to be humble.

"Of course! If not for the dutiful devotion of the Church of Atom, this town would not exist at all. We were here at the beginning, and will be witness to the end when the Great Division finally occurs. Until that day, nothing shall be done to jeopardize the sanctity of Megaton and its most holy inhabitants. Rest assured that your edicts shall be followed and upheld, oh blessed Consort."

Cort slapped a hand over her face. _Oh, just _peachy_. Now I'm a religious icon to a pack of radiation-obsessed zealots led by a daffy charlatan. Mom would be so proud. I might as well get some orders in, while he's taking them. _"And no worshipping him as a deity or some fool thing. It's um. An unseemly display of pride. They prefer to be treated as normal, humble people." She continued on in a rush as he opened his mouth to respond, feeling the last shred of her patience tearing loose. She almost, _almost_ had her Rad levels to where she wanted them, slowly edging up towards a sublime and humming 800, something she wanted to complete without a surplus of pomp and circumstance from the nutty Confessor. "So, think you and your whackj-ah, _congregation_, can manage all of that?"

"Of course, oh bless-" Cromwell suddenly cut off, tilting his head and sounding almost like a normal person. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"I am unsure of what it was." He tilted his head even further, waiting to see if the unsettling noise occurred again. It had almost sounded like a dog yelping, but not quite enough for him to think it had actually been one.

Cort sat for a moment, listening carefully and trying to pick anything up aside the gusts of wind wuthering around the top of the town's jagged outer wall, then shrugged and shook her head. "Well, I don't hear anything _now_, but it doesn't mean there wasn't something. One of my ears isn't exactly in what you'd call pristine condition." She brightened, suddenly getting a marvellous idea. _A little puzzle for me, and peace and quiet from him. Perfect_. " You know, why don't we sit in quiet contemplation for a while? I bet that would be an excellent use of this wonderful evening, and I can listen for whatever it is you heard." She had a full minute of silence to herself before Cromwell opened his mouth again, and she started eyeing the muddy water between her knees with a renewed and rather depressed interest. _ Ah, nuts. When the hell is this torture going to end?_

_

* * *

_

**While **Cort was impatiently waiting to get on with her life, Gob was patiently waiting for his to finally end, his last day, the last minutes peeling out in an endless dragging flow of agony. The disturbing noise Cromwell had heard, the muffled, high pitched sound of something not quite right, something somewhere _wrong_, had been torn out of the bartender when Moriarty wrenched his left arm from its socket. Lying breathless on the stained floor, Gob slowly went over it, trying to find something good to take with him into the dark.

It had been just another day of endless monotony, another stream of faceless patrons and repetitive radio broadcasts and waiting for a repetitive beating to start, boring and pain-filled and eternal, before the warning for the first of the spring storms had gone around the town and everything had changed. It had been particularly busy, everyone getting in for a last drink before the dust started flying, and Moriarty had been at the bar counting out the caps from the till, the dull clicking noise and babbling drunks nattering excitedly about the first big blow breaking up the soft noise of the radio. Three Dog had been broadcasting something new about Cort.

* * *

_**'Here's** a little shout out to our very own Miss 101, the Lone Wanderer, currently somewhere out in the Wasteland. Hear you've picked up the Good Fight again, courtesy of one aromatic admirer, whoo-whee! Next time you're in D.C. kid, drop on in, it's been a dog's age.'_

Irritated, the Irishman reached over to snap the radio off as another over-worn instrumental scratchily cranked up, then turned to him with a much cheerier expression. "Well, boyo, and if she's alone again she must have dumped off that fine specimen of rotted flesh she was toting around last time she was here. Doesn't say much for your chances, now does it?"

Not really listening but knowing he would be angrier without an answer, he always wanted an answer before he started tuning up, and silence after, Gob reflexively spat out the same words he always said as he scuffed a dirty rag over an even dirtier glass, not even hearing them any more. "She's coming back."

"Oh, aye, and mayhap she is. Maybe she's toddling her way home right now, dragging that high and mighty arse through the desert, and wouldn't that be a picture, just perfect as. Desperate to get back to the only_ family_ she has left, however tattered and rotting a substitute you may be. I suppose at least you're still breathing, unlike dear old Dad." He grinned, mouth too wide as he contemplated a dead and gone James. _Never to trouble me again, that one._ "Hold that happy thought right in your heart for a moment, my fine fellow, and then watch it choke to death on a lungful of sand, because I bet she surely is. Little lost lamb will probably be dead by nightfall." He chuckled, flicking the float back into the register as Gob looked up dully.

"What?"

Moriarty looked at him indulgently, scratching one hand through his white beard. "Well, the storms, laddie. Now, I don't suppose a poor sheltered lass from a Vault would have any idea just how serious they can be, do you? And by herself now, tsk. Crying shame."

He shook his head, dipping his head back down and rubbing at the rim of the smeared tumbler, having stopped giving a shit about getting them clean days ago, the day after Nova had crawled into his bed. "Someone would have told her. She's coming back." Nova hadn't come back again. She hadn't even looked at him, or even helped him up, like he had started counting on her to do. If anything, she was now even more drugged out and aloof, glassy eyes skating past him like he was dirt whenever she had to turn them somewhere near to where he was. Moriarty didn't seem to notice either one, the redhead's new chilly attitude, or the glasses. Gob decided he didn't care about either.

"Oh, and I'm sure anyone who cared would, aside from her father, who didn't seem to tell her much of anything as I recall. Someone not distracted by the vagaries of scientific fantasies or shuffled off this mortal coil. Did you?"

"..._What_?" He jerked his head up, staring directly at the Irishman for the first time in weeks. Moriarty grinned even wider, seeing he had provoked a more animated response. "I-I didn't-"

"Tsk, tsk, repeating yourself. Not a good sign, lad. Not a good sign for the girl either. No real friends in the world, no father, and no idea of what's about to hammer down upon her head. I should take bets on whether they find her corpse with her eyes open or shut, the poor storm-struck bastards always look so surprised when they go that way. I wonder if she'd be a coward, or just enough of a cun-"

"_Fuck _you. She's coming back, and she'll make you pay for _everything_, you stupid piece of shit." The words were out of Gob's mouth before he even knew they were coming. Somewhere in between realizing he didn't care what happened to himself anymore and still did about Cort, his cowed temper had flared up in a quiet little spurt, guttering itself out in a tiny flame of defiance. He could take the beatings, he could take the slights and insults and any sort of hurt against himself the other man could come up with, but couldn't stand the splinter of worry Moriarty had just slipped into him.

Anyone within earshot of the bartender fell dead silent, staring alternately at his uplifted head and the grin frozen on Moriarty's face. It broke a second later when Jericho, of all people, brayed out with approval. "About time you showed some backbone, meatsack. 'Nother whiskey."

Moriarty stared at Gob, his face inscrutable. Gob stared implacably back before the Irishman smiled and gave a funny little half-bow, flicking his hand towards the scruffy ex-raider. "You heard him, bucko. Get hopping."

He was still all smiles and civility as the last patron finally left as the wind picked up, not uttering another word about Cort or anything else that could be construed as auditory torture, and Gob knew that it meant that tonight it would finally be over for him, reading Moriarty like an open, abusive book. He could lie down, and not get up, and even if he was giving up, he wouldn't have to worry about seeing the look on Cort's face when she found out he had.

_Cort. _Gob apathetically pushed away a surge of worry as Moriarty started pummelling him, not wanting to feel it and unable to help himself. Three Dog had started calling her the Lone Wanderer the day after Nova had stopped seeming to worry about him. _Why are you alone, Cort._ He knew how Charon's contract worked, every ghoul from Underworld did; if walking corpses could have had a boogeyman, the giant asshole would have been it, but he was a leashed nightmare, _her_ nightmare, and wasn't capable of getting loose without her say-so.

He was terrible company, had to be, but he was old and had come out of the Wasteland, according to Carol, and was next to impossible to kill(when Gob had first made it to Underworld, rumour had it that Ahzrukhal used to host clandestine pit fighting in one of the disused areas of the Museum, before Winthrop and Barrows had found out and somehow put a stop to it. The last match had supposedly been between a Yao Guai brought in from God only knew where and the morose bouncer. Rumour also had it that Charon had had to go up against the mutant bear with only a combat knife, Ahzrukhal wanting higher odds to rake in caps on). No, the big ghoul was definitely still alive, and if he was with Cort, he would definitely know when the weather was turning and inform her of it. Gob was pretty sure that even if he didn't like her, he definitely didn't hate her, having watched him nervously the last time they were in. Anyone who had seen him in the 9th Circle knew what hate on Charon's face looked like, and it hadn't been there that night.

But then _why_ wasn't Three Dog talking about him? He would be, if Charon was there with her; he talked for ghoul equality and played the Daring Dashwood and Argyle tapes at least five times a damn day. It could only mean that for whatever reason, Cort no longer had his contract, which somehow worried him even more than the idea of her being alone. She had called the big bastard her friend, and Gob couldn't see how she could end up leaving him. She always came back. She was coming back, and oh sweet _Jesus_ Moriarty was pulling his arm back and if he pulled any harder it would-

* * *

**He** was coming back out of it, and Gob lifted his head to stare at the floor next to his face as the black spots at the edge of his vision cleared. His shoulder was an absolute riot of agony that pulsed with every beat of his heart, every shallow breath he took in, Moriarty letting his own out in ragged pants from somewhere above him.

"Perking back up are we? And here I thought I'd finally gotten you to faint. We'll just have to try harder then, won't we, boyo. Time to finally pay up for what that yammering mouth has earned you."

Broken down and being broken apart, Gob shut himself off as much as possible as a hot hand dug into the back of his shirt and pulled, the collar cutting into his neck like a noose, his dislocated arm hanging limp as he was dragged up. The only thing keeping him tied to himself, keeping him from shutting the last door on his life was that one tiny slip of worry, burning like a brand in the back of his mind. _Cort. Why are you alone, Cort?_

The worry was a good thing. It helped him hang on, just a little longer. Just long enough.


	28. Blindfolded and Kicked Back

_Thanks for the new reviews! I hope those of you that are able have New Vegas and are enjoying it! I'll probably get it in a few months, sadly full price is out of my range and I need to buy a new graphics card first anyway. I'm not going to play it with everyone looking like frigging polygons, and I've got Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 to go through first. Not that bad, I suppose, if I was playing it I wouldn't be writing for a good month at least. ;) I just wish the commercials for it weren't making me want it so much. :(_

_

* * *

_

**Standing **at the edge of her room with one ear pressed to her door as Gob lay on the floor and Cort sat on her ass, Nova was worried. Waggling her fingers in a backwards attempt to get them to stay still, she thought that estimation of her emotional state over and then shook her head, the movements disturbingly syncing up with her juddering hands. _Sugar, you are so past worried you're having a fit three weeks from tomorrow. You are an inch from going into a full-on panic, and that just won't help anyone. Now shut up and nut up._

After spending the night with Gob, she had been scrupulous in her behaviour the next day, changing nothing about it, the same dull looks, the same disinterest, even going for a piss at the exact same time she always did. Unfortunately, the ragged bartender _had _changed. He didn't say anything, not one word, and thank the stars above he hadn't treated her any different either, but he had felt better, and looked it. Moriarty, the preternaturally observant sonofabitch, had noticed the change almost instantly. He had done his level best to find out what had been going on, and Nova had done hers to make sure Gob went back to being the same beaten-in, lonely mess he had been before she interfered. She wouldn't be able to figure out how to get any kind of help if Colin trigged to something being up.

The end of that first night she had almost slid back into the full doses she had been huffing before, seeing the shattered look on Gob's face after she had spent the day acting as if he was non-existent, and left him bleeding on the floor at the end of the evening instead of walking over after Moriarty had finished giving him his lumps. Seeing the triumphant look on _his_ face had almost made her retch, and she had forced herself to keep facing him with the same dense look on her own. _What's good for the goose is good for the gander, sugar. Now keep sucking it back._

"Well, and aren't you going to pick him up, lass? You always had a soft spot for the hard luck fellow."

"Tired gettin' my hands dirty." Moving her eyes to Gob in an absent manner, she carefully slid them back to Moriarty, blinking rapidly and making herself sound suddenly interested as she wheedled, sounding like the consummate addict. "Colin, I'm almost out. I've been good, you _know_ I have. Please, sugar?" He smiled even wider at how needy she sounded, and the cunning look in his eyes dropped away. _I'm high on Jet but you're just wasted on control, just popping it like gumdrops and going blind when you get it. Who's really hooked through the bag?_

"And so you have. Now be a good girl and toddle off to bed, and we'll set you up in the morning."

He _had_ set her up, set her up with extra, and Nova wondered if it was a gift or a ploy, if he had really figured something out or was just stuffed so full of himself he thought he was being nice. Either way, she kept up with her little charade, playing her own little tune in the background, and watched as both men danced to it. She might have kept them going indefinitely, if she hadn't inadvertently provoked Gob into making his own music, the ghoul so hopeless after seeing a spark of it he stopped giving a shit entirely.

Nova hadn't been downstairs when Gob had his little outburst; if she had, she might have run for help right then and there, _any_ help, knowing instantly where his show of guts was going to take him. She had been knee deep in clients the entire time, all of them wanting a push, tug or tickle before the dust storm cut them off for either hours or days, depending on what the weather decided to get up to. She had barely had time to turn around, let alone do anything else, and was too tired to come down and notice anything afterwards. It also meant that by the time Moriarty shut the doors, she hadn't had time to do Jet either, and was for the first time, in a very long time, almost completely stone sober. Having weaned herself off slightly, she was also trembling in jigs and jags instead of shaking herself to bits, which was the only thing that saved her after she went down the stairs, finally slapped into action by a clear head and the agonized shriek that punched through it, waking her up out of an exhausted, fretful sleep.

Shooting out of bed and to the door before she was fully awake, she caught hold of herself in time to keep from yanking it open, recognizing the familiar voice that had made it as it trailed off into a groan. _Oh hell. Oh hell oh no oh shit!_ Forcing herself to exhibit a drugged calm she didn't feel, Nova sucked up her guts, opened her door and stumbled blearily down the stairs, whining at just the right pitch. "Colin baby, what's going _on_? M'trying to sleep, you _know_ I was busy today."

Moriarty instantly pushed Gob against the bar, pinning him with one arm and giving a jaunty little salute to Nova with the other. "And surely you were, so I apologize. We promise there won't be any more noise, don't we bucko? So go back to bed lass. _Now_."

Gob turned his head far enough to look at her as Moriarty shook him. "Nova, help me." Nova nearly lost it. His voice was pleading, which was bad, but his milky eyes were saying he didn't expect anything from her, not anymore, and it was somehow so much worse.

Still she kept her face looking drugged and mildly disdainful, and then let a slip of real loathing take over, which was completely genuine and entirely for herself. _Look at what you let happen. What you let get out of hand. How did you get this way, and who are you kidding, asking yourself that. Not me. You know exactly how. That silver-tongued sonofabitch_. Wearily digging a finger through a hole in her tights and scratching, she shook her head. "Nu-uh. I gotta pee. Bed in a minute."

Trailing one hand down the wall as if she needed it to find her way, she carefully skimmed her way to the door and slipped out of it as Moriarty turned his attentions back to Gob. She kept herself to the same shuffling gait as she slumped towards the washroom, walked over the ramps and up to the door, let it creak slowly open and closed, then stood gripping the outside knob so hard her knuckles cracked. _ Now, I can do something now, never going to get another chance, I have five minutes, ten if I'm lucky, what now, do something NOW!_

Nova thought of running to Simms and immediately dismissed it. The man had made it clear time and again that he was more interested in his asinine status quo than he was in helping the ghoul. She hated it, and understood it. _ It's all who you know and who you blow, and how many people would blow over seeing him go against Moriarty for a ghoul. Too many._ Who else? Jericho would do something, if she offered him a shitload of freebies, freebies for _life_, it would have to be to off Colin, but he would most likely take out Gob as well just for the hell of it. _'Accidentally on purpose', _Nova thought. Growing up with her daddy, she knew a lot about old A.O.P. So had Momma. She shook her head, biting on her nails and pushing the distracting thoughts away. Billy Creel? No, he wouldn't risk leaving Maggie. Moira? She either wouldn't, or would and then get herself killed trying. Nova bit harder, heedless to the blood she was bringing up on her fingers as she tore them to the quick. _Hell, who would be loco enough to go in there and get him out, who would _care _enough for a stinking ghoul?_

Seeing something in the bowl move, Nova let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding. Confessor Cromwell was up late doing his loopy communion with the bomb, talking to it and waving his arms around in the moonlight like a genuine lunatic. _Him. He can get a pack of his little whackos together, Colin couldn't stop a mob...or at least keep busy killing them long enough for Gob to bolt._ It was a cruel thought, but Nova found she didn't much mind having it. The Atomites could do something real for a ghoul this time, and to her the bartender was worth all of them put together. Running, or trying to in the state she was in, Nova suddenly reined herself up into a staggering halt. There, boots off and sitting waist-deep in the irradiated water behind Cromwell, was the Vault girl, Cort. She was looking up at the man as he continued on with a speech that was now obviously being given for her benefit, and if he didn't see anything wrong with the way her face looked, the way the light was hitting her eyes and seeming to sink into them, then the man really _was_ crazy.

"_Crazy_." Nova breathed out the word almost reverently. "She's here, _finally,_ and she's crazy as a fuckin' bedbug." Breaking into a brilliant, absolutely beautiful smile, Nova ran for the girl, rapidly planning out what to say. _Something good, something that'll make her act like an angry Yao Guai momma, all het up and roaring and give Gob a chance to get away._ Still on the edge of a full-scale panic and now blind with rash hope, it never even crossed her mind that Cort(along with herself, had she known it), was one of the only people in the world Gob wouldn't leave to save his own skin. It was an honest, understandable, fatal mistake, one made after years of watching the ghoul run from any barfights that had broken out over the years, not wanting the involved parties to find him an even more attractive target than each other. "Hey girl! Cort!"

Cort looked up at her breathless squeaking, Nova trying to yell and keep quiet at the same time. Brows furrowing up as she flicked her Pip-Boy light on to see who it was, the black arcs knotted up even further as she got a good look at the person hailing her. "Jesus _creeping_ Christ, Nova, mushroom clouds don't go as high as you look like you've been sailing. You really, really need to sto-"

Nova decided to lay it on as thick as possible, it not occurring to her either that enraged animals didn't act like the sharpest tools in the shed, any more than panicked people would. "Colin's torturing Gob, he's gone crazy. He's going to murder him, he's almost dea-"

Cort cut her off. "_Stay with Cromwell_."

Snapping out the order, Nova had a split-second to see the girl's face full on in the light, to wonder what it was that she had just unleashed before Cort exploded out of the pool and snatched a knife from her boot, her feet hitting the ramp to the saloon before the water flying off of her had had a chance to entirely hit the ground.

Nova obediently moved closer to Cromwell as he moved towards her and waited for Cort to save Gob, hoping she had saved herself by doing this and not knowing that the only thing that had even a slim chance of saving her, of saving _any _of them, was one ghoul who didn't even know he was going to.

* * *

**Having** moved the beds together and rearranged everything to the point where he thought it was acceptable and finding nothing else to do, Charon poked his head back into Cort's room after returning from checking on her location yet again. He wasn't particularly pleased to see Cromwell still near her, had been more than a little miffed by it in fact, having gotten the pleasant notion of sitting down next to the bomb with her. _Not fucking likely with that fuckstick next to her._ Cort hadn't looked so much upset as aggravated, and he had left them alone after she waved at him, not wanting to start some kind of shitfit their first night back. She was more than capable of driving the man off if she decided to.

In the ensuing time frame since she had gone out, he had moved furniture, checked on Cort, arranged the components for the Nuka grenades he wanted to make in the morning(she had wonderfully given all three Quantums to him when he had presented the others, telling him that that would make her happier than getting buzzed out of her gourd), checked on Cort, looked for something to do that wasn't so involved he would become distracted by it, checked on Cort again, and then returned upstairs to peek into her room about the same time that Gob was getting his arm popped out like the wing on an overcooked chicken. Aside from when he had carried her to bed after their second night in Megaton, he had not entered it, and had rapidly retreated after performing that task(if it had been any other employer, he wouldn't have bothered, but then any other employer hadn't sniffled themselves to sleep on his chest after clinging to it like a cuddly emotional parasite).

As a rule, employers generally did not let him into their private quarters, normally choosing to have him guard the door. They had all been too afraid and untrusting. He hadn't expected Cort to wake up and be angry with him for intruding, but the habit had been too deeply ingrained, and had also kept him from examining the contents like he had with the rest of the house. Now, though, he supposed it was also _his_ room, his bed now being in it, a thought that pleased him inordinately. There wasn't much to distinguish it on face value; the beds were bare except for the blankets he had spread out on them, and the only other object laid out was on old BB gun with a small cannister of pellets, something apparently important enough for the robot to refrain from packing away with the rest of her arsenal.

Reaching out, he tentatively hooked a finger through the handle of one of the desk drawers and pulled it open. This one was filled with paper, several battered pens and pencils, and a plethora of cherry bombs. Pushing it shut, he moved on to the next. Sensor modules, Wonderglue and pilot lights, with a few fission batteries thrown in. There didn't seem to be any particular rhyme or reason to the way the contents were organized, but he supposed that made sense, considering whose desk it was. Moving to the filing cabinet and tugging at a handle, he lifted his eyebrows up in surprise when it didn't open and then dropped them back down, frowning as he tried the other ones. Every part of it was locked. Madly curious at what she could possibly have deemed important enough to lock up, nothing else in the house having received that particular treatment, he stood for a while puzzling at the contents before deciding to refrain from opening it, not willing to push his luck that far. She might not want him to get into it, and one never knew what could end up coming out of a locked container, especially with her. Something crazy could-

Charon instantly jerked his head up and tore down the stairs as a muffled gunshot cracked out, the noise of it cutting through the layered metal sheets of the house. Grabbing up his shotgun, he kicked the front door open, ran to the railing and cursed. Cromwell was there, and the redhead from the bar, both facing Simms as he ran towards them with his own rifle drawn, the door to his own house still swinging from his exit. Snarling, Charon turned as Dogmeat skidded to a halt beside him. "_Find her_."

Cort was gone.

* * *

**While** Charon was occupied with fishing through her desk, Cort was bursting through the door to the saloon, opening it so hard it rebounded off the wall and slapped shut behind her. She was roaring like the mutant bear Nova had compared her to, bare feet slapping the worn metal floor and head swinging like a pendulum as the water streamed out of her hair, an emphatic force of negation pointed squarely at the Irishman. The redhead had made her angry, blindingly so, and every dark pathway in her mind was inflamed with wrath, every violent impulse she had held back over the days and weeks and months ready to be let loose on the target before her with nothing but her rage and a combat knife to back it up.

"MORIARTY!"

The man in question had looked up as she burst into the saloon, startled and speechless for a bare instant before flinging Gob in front of him, pinning the ghoul against the bar with one arm behind his back and the other over the battered man's shoulders as he smiled winningly at Cort.

"Well hail the little conquering hero. Finally back are we? I was beginning to get worried, and I see I was right to. You're starting to look a little ragged around the edges, though not quite so much as poor Gob. About time though, it's been so many weeks my hands are purely fatigued. " He winked slyly, and Cort hesitated. Gob looked like hell, bruised, bleeding and with one of his arms at entirely the wrong angle, but he wasn't near to dead, and Moriarty didn't look even _close _to crazy. What he looked like was the same old cunning bastard, and every level of her suddenly screamed out to be careful. Head still weaving, Cort adjusted her stance and responded.

"What the _fuck_ do you think you're doing to him? Let him go, _now_."

"What am I doing? Taking my payment in full for your meddling, out of his hide since yours wasn't available. This is what you get when you cross me, lass, and why you won't ever do it again. Now if you want to have your little rotten f-" He trailed off, letting the smug grin slide off of his face as one appeared on Cort's, narrowly keeping himself from gaping. The little witch was laughing again.

Cort was laughing from the horror of this revelation, feeling almost completely unhinged by it, scaling up and down and staring until she choked herself off. _ All this time, all this time and I didn't come home, why didn't I come home, why!_ She snapped back at him, denying the fault to deny him a moment of triumph even as she blamed herself for failing. "You sick, sadistic little _prick_! You think I'm stupid enough to believe that? You forget who I came from? Bull_shit_ it's my fault. It's nobody's fault that you're an abusive, manipulative _fuck _ but your own. _I _didn't hurt him, I have _never_ hurt him, and I'll be damned if I'll let you hurt _anyone _ever _again_."

"Well, and that surely was a colourful speech. I'll do you the courtesy of giving one back." He nodded politely. "Go fuck your father's corpse, lass. Warm him up, thaw that icebox between your legs, and then you can both burn in hell." Cort felt her face shift into something terrible, felt something surface and subsume her, and started forward as Moriarty's expression became something almost pleasantly surprised, his tone going from taunting to almost conversational. "Sweet Mother and Bride. Well hello again." His free hand flew out in a blur, and Cort stopped, confused at the _thok! _noise that had suddenly sounded out from below her and feeling suddenly, horribly out of breath.

"Wh-What?" She looked down, terribly confused at the sight of a switchblade hilt protruding out of her shirt, almost directly between her breasts. Dropping her own knife, she reached up her hand to wrap around the one embedded in her chest. _There's only half of it, where's the rest of it, I-I don't think it's broken it wouldn't stay stuck to me, why can't I feel-_ She groggily tilted her head back as Gob screamed.

"CORT, NO!"

* * *

**Moriarty **watched as she looked back up to the ghoul, her hand still wrapped around the hilt sticking out of her chest, her voice coming in a breathy, liquid rattle. "_Gob_?"

"Say goodbye to dear old Gob, sweetheart, for you'll see him nevermore." He shook his head in a display of insincere sympathy and waited for her to drop. He had meant to spur her into doing something stupid, get her close enough to put down, and then have his own sort of fun, seeing as she was alone in the world, crazy as a loon but left a foundling, abandoned first by purpose and then by death. Unlike Gob, he held no stock in the drivel that poured out of the radio, having met the girl in person and deciding while inconvenient, she was hardly a match for him. Seeing her eyes after he had taunted her the last time though, the lack of anything in them, had changed his mind instantly, and he had moved to kill her with the nearest weapon to hand. Moriarty suppressed a shudder, still waiting for the girl to collapse and not quite realizing that it was taking longer than normal.

He had seen James then, dead or no, saw him surfacing in her eyes and buried in the bones of her face like some half-remembered nightmare, and for a terrible endless moment he felt like James was seeing him _back_, a savage, cunning recognition shot through with cold, empty insanity. Anyone faced with that look in her father's eyes had not ended well, and Moriarty was damned if he was going to go out like they had, especially not by the cursed bastard's whelp, the little witch that had laughed in his face. The man had been there when she'd done that too, lurking in the grey of them as she whooped like a banshee, and that had been part of what had finally driven him over the edge. James had bested him in the end no matter what scheme or trick he had tried to pull against him over the long years of their acquaintance, not always seeing what was right in front of him but _always _seeing around the next corner, never rolling over or staying down-

Moriarty frowned. The girl wasn't going down, only staring at Gob, who was babbling her name in a toneless litany. Even more amazing was the fact that her other hand was coming up, joining the one already wrapped around the hilt of the switchblade, and for the love of all things holy she was actually trying to walk. The cursed _bitch_ was now also trying to pull out the bedamned _knife_, moving it in tiny tugs and jags as she jerked herself forward. He shook his head slowly. "Oh no, lass. I don't think so."

Pulling a 10mm from under his vest and pinning Gob firmly in place as he started struggling in earnest, he aimed it carefully at the girl's head, then hesitated. A gunshot, even from a pistol, would draw a crowd. "Go on and die now, you blasted cunt, if you still want to meet your maker with a face. Save me the bullet and the attention it'll draw." She gave one last step, looked up at him like a whipped dog, and then crumpled to the floor in a heap. Smiling, Moriarty sighed to himself, and turned to pull the trigger on his last problem. "Finally. Now there's a good girl, nice and tidy, out of the way, and we can finish our business, boyo. It's about time."

"No,_ nonono_..."

* * *

_Oh, and now you can all die of suspense. I wouldn't, I want to see this next bit._


	29. Revenge Like This is Never Sweet

**"No**, Cort, no, _noCortnonoNO_..."

Moriarty shook his head at the increasingly loud, babbling string of denial and moved his hand to grip Gob's good arm in a painful clench, getting annoyed as the ghoul slowly straightened up. He had forgotten the hunching bastard was somewhat taller, and found he didn't need or appreciate the reminder. _Well, he won't be reminding me of anything anymore. Your use is finally at an end, my fine stinking fellow_. Absently wondering where he would find a new bartender, he snapped at Gob as he continued his puling. "Try to go with some dignity, you little rotter. It's damned embarrassing. Now _shut up_." Sighing as the ghoul suddenly cut off, he brought the 10mm up as Gob turned to face him, his chalked out eyes wide and blank before he blinked and moved them around, focusing first on the pistol and then on Moriarty himself. "Good. Now...here, now. No good trying to get away, boyo. Time to join that bitch on the floor. If you behave yourself, I'll be charitable and sling you both into the same ditch."

He frowned, and then laughed as Gob started moving himself back, or as much of himself as he could, the top of his body arching away until he was nearly looking at the ceiling. Moriarty shook his head, more amused than irritated at this late juncture. He had won, and everything else was just sauce on the roast goose. "Where the hell do you think you're going to-"

* * *

**Moving** so fast he was nearly a blur, Gob snapped forward like a ragged viper, his forehead connecting solidly with Moriarty's nose and breaking it with a liquid, meaty crunch, the other man screaming in surprised pain and letting go of his arm. Gob instantly darted his freed hand out, sucker-punching him right in the gut, then hauled back and clapped it over Moriarty's left ear, boxing it as hard as he could and prompting another infuriated, pain-filled howl. The ghoul had done more than run from decades of bar fights. He had also watched and learned, soaking up the knowledge with the avid intensity of a bullied child aching for a chance to hit back and wanting to know how. Gob didn't need to know how to fight well to fight back; he now knew how to throw out every dirty trick in the book.

Gob scraped the blood off of his forehead as if it was something filthy and sneered, his voice filled with sudden, brazen contempt. "Boyo? _Boyo_? I was bustin' my cherry on my first _girlfriend_ while you were still spunk in your shithead father's _balls_, you limp-dicked, under-aged _FUCK_!" A wild laugh burst out of him, the rasping bray sounding viciously defiant and horrible. "Now respect your _fuckin'_ elders!"

Moriarty stared up at him, shock being quickly overtaken by fury as he pressed one hand to his battered face and pulled it back, coated in his own blood and snot. "You shuffling little _shit_, I'll blow-"

Gob, completely ignoring a look that would have made him crumple into himself less than a minute before, darted his good hand out as Moriarty tried to raise the pistol up, grabbing it by the barrel and wrenching it away. "GIVE ME THAT!"

Again, Moriarty found himself hit by a sudden wave of shock. He had lived a lifetime sucking off the lives of others, sometimes taking advantage and sometimes taking it all, reaching a point in his life where he thought he had seen everything. In all his born days he could never have expected to see this, and found himself angered even further by it, the obstacle to what he wanted even more infuriating than the pain clamouring through his head. Blinded by arrogance, face bleeding and wheezing in short rales, still he tried to get the ghoul to back down, never having given up on crushing anything in his chosen path and not inclined to start now. He wanted the fucking shuffler dead, so the bastard _would _die; he only had to break him again. Moriarty roared and surged up, yelling at the top of his lungs and foolishly expecting it to work. "What the FUCK do you think you're DOING? I'll-" Gob whipped his arm around as fast as his head had moved, slamming the butt of the pistol into the side of the Irishman's head hard enough to rock it to the side and kicking up blood in a spray.

"What am I-what am I _doing_? I'M FINALLY DOING _SOMETHING_!" Heaving, he bellowed back at Moriarty, his face filled with such an unholy level of hate that the other man finally felt a spark of genuine uncertainty, cutting through the outrage and pain as he was faced with the full extent of what he had made, his cruelty finally come home to roost. All the rage and fear, all the suffering and pain and loneliness that Gob had compressed into a deep, festering ball within himself for the last fifteen years had finally erupted, flooding into every part of him as he watched Cort collapse out of sight, taking all the fantasies he had built up around her with her as she thumped to the floor like a sack of meat.

Hearing that quiet impact, the horrid, gurgling noise rising up as her body fruitlessly kept trying to work, the sound of a body not quite accepting that it was dead yet, a sound he had heard a dozen times or more over the years, had finally driven him over the edge. Everyone had forgotten that there was a man inside the beaten, downtrodden ghoul, one strained to the absolute limits of despair and hopelessness, one that was now drowning in the throes of hysterical fury and grief as he listened to his only friend drowning in her own blood. He had lost everything, and that loss had finally set him free. Drawing his arm back for another blow, he poured his broken heart out.

"Nobody _ever_ expects me to do ANYTHING! Sweet Gob, doormat Gob, poor, pathetic kicked fucking _puppy_ spineless Gob, always getting his ass handed to him and waiting for the white fuckin' knight to come to the rescue." He scaled back up into a shriek, going so loud his grating voice turned into a high-pitched ring in his own ears. "_WELL YOU FUCKING KILLED HER_!" His arm whipped out from above and struck, this time bringing a string of white-haired scalp away on the edge of the gun.

Moriarty, definitely looking the worse for wear with his nose mashed and one cheekbone stoved in, tried to sound intimidating once more and failed horribly, the sharp mind that had sustained him through decades clouded by trauma and a growing sense of horror. It couldn't end like this, not by this _thing_. "I'll...I'll..." Gob sent the pistol surging forward again and broke his jaw with a snap.

"SHUT UP! You'll do what, beat me? Sell me? Fuck me up the _ass_? You'll do fucking SHIT!" Moving forward, he kept screaming as Moriarty quickly retreated and found absolutely no satisfaction in seeing it. All he wanted was to see Cort standing before him, to see her smile, look into the soft grey eyes that would always meet his, to feel her warm against him. Knowing he could never do any of those things again made him feel nothing at all. "She was the only one, the _only_ one who came for me, _just_ me, the only one who fucking came _back_, the one I _loved_, AND YOU TOOK HER FROM ME!"

He raised the gun over his head for another blow, and grunted in sudden surprise as Moriarty rushed forward, intent on bringing him down before he could be snuffed out by the insane monstrosity that had somehow been hiding inside the hunching timid bartender. He would be _damned_ if he was going out like this. Grabbing onto Gob's dislocated arm, he pulled, meaning to force him to his knees so he could get some kind of advantage. All it did was anger the ghoul even further, who shrieked again before solidly bringing one sneakered foot up into the other man's crotch, as hard as he could.

Moriarty lost all his air in a whoosh for the second time in as many minutes and dropped, Gob following to land where he had kicked with one bent knee and bellowing in triumph as he felt something burst beneath it, quickly overwhelmed by the high-pitched, almost girlish keen that poured out of the half-emasculated Irishman. Losing a testicle had lent him another lungful of air, which was rapidly joined by a hot flood of vomit and busted teeth. Whipping and bludgeoning the pistol into Moriarty's screaming, puking maw over and over until it was nothing but a ragged pulp, gore and chips of bone flying as his head rebounded off the floor with the force of the impacts, Gob kept going until the hateful noise stopped. He stared at Moriarty as he twitched, _his_ body now not knowing it was dead yet, and screamed one last time.

Breath now coming in short gasps interspersed with high-pitched sobs, he turned the pistol around and aimed it for the bloody ruin that was all that was left of Colin Moriarty's sly, cunning face, letting the gun drop to his side when all that was left of the rest of him finally fell still. His tormentor, the monster of his nightmares and thief of all his dreams, the man that had held his fate and him captive for so many long, endless years, was finally dead.

"Dead, you're dead, you're finally dead, I'm free, I'm free, _free_." Gob turned, hitching towards the end of the bar. All he could hope for now was to get to Cort before she was entirely gone, see her before the life went completely out of her dying body. If he could see, he could remember, and he could hold her, he could still do that much, could keep her from being alone at the last of it, could keep himself from being completely useless. "Cort! Cort, I'm coming, don't-" He stopped and turned back once more to face the front of the saloon, everything quiet enough now that he could finally listen for her again, listen for that terrible rattling heave to rise up from the other side of the bar. He strained to hear her, and felt the last bit of strength holding him together crumble apart. It was silent except for his own heavy breathing, and Gob let out one last ragged cry.

"No, no, _nonono_. I'm too _late_." Cort was gone. He knew what was happening without seeing her, having watched Moriarty kill so many other people for running up against him; her eyes would be sightless, going cloudy and dull like his own, the soft press of her body going stiff and cold, her kind mouth slack, her clever hands still. Gob tried to force himself to turn back around and keep going, to at least go far enough to get the wretched knife out of her, it would look like some hellish kind of birthday candle sticking up from her chest, and couldn't bring himself to do it. He couldn't bear having that be his last sight of her, and cursed himself for being weak._ I should have done something, anything else. I should have died. Oh Jesus Cort, how can you, no, nonono...  
_

Pushed to the limit in every way imaginable, his body screaming and his heart as raw as the ravaged mess he had made below him, he felt a wave of blackness wash over his mind and gave himself up to it, sliding to the floor.

* * *

**Cort**, her psychotic rage curtailed by the knife digging painfully into her chest, was sprawled on the same floor a few scant minutes before Gob would be hitting it himself, feeling her heels digging painfully into her rear and one mother of a commotion going on underneath it. She wasn't sure _what _the hell was going on, precisely, the blood roaring in her ears was blocking everything else out. _Something_ was going on, if the heavy vibrations she was feeling through the floor were any indication. Rolling her eyes around to confirm that there was now no chance of Moriarty seeing her regenerate, she reached up and pulled the switchblade partway out of her chest. _Lucky, lucky girl, it missed the important parts._ Feeling it grate on the top of one of her ribs, she gasped, trying hard not to black out, holding her breath for what seemed like forever to try and keep as much blood out of her lungs as possible. _Fuck, oh Jesus, it didn't miss enough. Just don't breathe, don't drown on yourself, just hold it and pull, pull it out-_

Rocking onto her right side as the knife finally came loose, she coughed up a mouthful of blood, feeling the slick heat of it slide down to pool around her ear. Thanks to Gob jerking Moriarty around, the knife had nailed her solidly in the lung instead of her heart, and instead of dying she only had to deal with coughing out the results of the near miss. Tilting farther to retch the last of the fluid out of herself as another loud thump hit the floor, she focused on feeling the radiation she was saturated in heal up her damaged flesh, not quite ready to get back to business. _Score another one for Moira's fuckup. I need to send that woman a fruit basket._

Letting out one last heaving, rattling cough, Cort pushed herself up, legs spraddling out like a newborn Brahmin as she tried to stand. Neither man was anywhere to be seen, and she felt another bolt of pain go through her chest, this one brought on by panicked worry. "Guh-_hob_? Gob? _Answer me_!" Staggering around the bar, her right hand slapping against the stools in an effort to keep upright, frothy drool still running from her mouth, she jerked to a halt as she finally rounded it and saw what was laid out before her in the soft, green glow from her Pip-Boy. She had been expecting the worst, but in her wildest dreams it hadn't been _this_. Moriarty was dead on the floor, his face so beaten in it looked like a bomb crater, blood and pieces of internal matter splattered all over the back of the bar. "Holy fucking _shit._ Gob? Where are you, did you d..." She trailed off, seeing that the body on the floor was actually two pressed together, the extra limbs going unnoticed as she focused on the carnage that had been inflicted upon one of them. "Gob! Shitshit_shit_!"

Moving more smoothly now as things continued to knit together, Cort hurried over to the slumped pile of her friend, grabbed him by the sides and pulled him away from what was left of Moriarty, not being able to stand the sight of it touching him. Gently setting him down, she knelt over him and patted at his face, watching the bruises and bloody patches on it starting to knit wherever her hand made contact. "Gob? Come on, wake up. No, _no_, scratch that." Shuffling back before she could heal him any further, she turned her attention to his dislocated arm. "Wake up _after_ I put this back in. Putting it back in will probably definitely wake you up anyway." Rearranging herself, Cort brought Gob's forearm up and gently laid it over his stomach. Wincing in preparatory sympathy, she let go long enough to brush his forehead, smoothing out the sparse, sweaty hair. "Ooh, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but this is going to _really_ fucking _suck_." Cort closed her eyes, held her breath, and snapped his arm out and up with all her might.

* * *

**Gob** rushed back into consciousness, thrust out of the comforting darkness and into a blaring light by another new and completely agonizing assault on his tortured shoulder, his mind clawing frantically to keep a hold of the last shreds of insensibility as his body insistently threw them off in response to the pain. _Fucking sonofabitch won't let me be, fucking hell,told _her _to go to hell, _"_YOU_ GO TO HELL ALREADY!" Screaming, he jerked up and thrust the 10mm into the dark shape leaning over him and pulled the trigger, then tried to figure out what he had just done to Moriarty or what Moriarty had done to his ears. The Irish fuck suddenly sounded like a girl, looked like a girl, it _was_ a girl, it was-

"_Cort_? Oh God. No, nonono!" If he had been living in a nightmare before, he had woken up out of it into his own personal Hell. He had dreamed it all, dreamed her coming in the first time and dreamed Moriarty killing her, he must've, because here he was killing her right now. Cort was on her knees, face still twisted up from the shriek she had let out and both hands pressed to her side, both coated in blood that looked like cheap wine in the dirty light, blood that was dribbling to the stained floor and splattered over his own trembling hand and God help him, it was splashed around her _mouth_, and he knew her insides had to have been shredded for that to happen.

He spent a split second looking at the pistol in dumb shock, an inch away from pressing it into his own temple and ending himself before he could watch her die in front of him all over again, before he violently flung it away and grabbed for her hands, his left shoulder screaming dully in protest, driving another horrifying realization home. _It works it's back in, she put it back in, she fixed it and I shot her._ Gob felt a wave of self-disgust so strong wash over him he was made sick by it. She had been _helping_ him, and he had killed her. Grasping her hands, he nearly dropped them again, then forced himself to hold tighter, trying to see where the bullet had ripped into her. They were wet, and hot, so very wet and far too hot, burning against his own.

"Cort, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, oh God Cort, I'm _sorry_, please don't go, don't _leave me_-" He blinked and fell silent in mid-plea, confused as she tried to tug away.

"Oh you've got to be fucking _kidding _me." Coughing into her shoulder, she pulled her hands free from his and rubbed at her chest, pushing gently at him when he tried to reclaim them. "Leggo, Gob, I'm fine, you didn't hit anything important and I have to see if that came out the other side or not, otherwise I'll be itching for _weeks_."

"Wh-What?" Arms falling limp to his sides, he watched her reach one of her own back to pat around, her face going from annoyed to blissful to non-plussed in a handful of seconds.

"Oh, good! Exit wound. Wait. I'm happy I have an exit wound. That's just _great_."

Watching her totter to her feet, Gob let his mouth hang open. There was an ugly hole in her back the size of a bottlecap, one that he had _put_ there, and it was shrinking as he stared at it. "Cort? What's happening?"

Turning at the lost, forlorn tone, a number of details fell into place for Cort. Gob was still hurt, had beaten someone to death for the first time in years or the first time_ ever_ after going through months of torture, and had just seen something more or less impossible. Twice. _Ah crap, he's going into shock. Just the cherry on my sundae of incompetence. At least I can fix this._ Presented with someone she still needed to take care of, she firmly shoved her own guilt and misgivings away and focused entirely on the task at hand. "Come on, come here, you'll feel better once you press close. Upsy-daisy, lazy." Hoisting him up, she leaned on the bar and wrapped one arm around him, coughing again and groaning. "Oh crackers, _I _need to feel better."

Pressing herself against Gob's left side to get as much radiation into him as possible, Cort found her wish far from granted as the sound of running feet hammered towards them from various ramps around the town, although one set sounded wonderfully, distinctly heavy and familiar. The relief she was feeling dampened a second later when she realized how upset the person attached to those feet would be. "Oh _jeeze_, I am going to be in so much trouble. Just _heaps_ of it."

Gob, so fundamentally exhausted he could feel the muscles on his stomach and arms quivering in rapid little tremors and not quite sure _what_ was going on aside from the fact that Cort was seemingly here and wonderfully, comfortingly irradiated, decided that he didn't much care about anything else. Almost. "Cort?"

She tilted her head to rest against his as he wrapped his arm back around her waist and instinctively huddled closer to her, his chalky eyes fixed and staring at the door as the racket from outside increased. "Gob."

"Are we dead?"

Cort stroked his side reassuringly as the runners outside made it to the last ramp, speaking in a slow, soothing tone. "No, Gob. You're not dead, and neither am I. We are not dead, Gob."

He turned his face far enough to stare at her, his expression blank. "Are you really here?"

Cort held him tighter and swallowed, looking directly back into his eyes as she always did. "Yes, Gob. I'm really here. I promise."

Gob let his head drop onto her shoulder, pressed his face into the side of her blood-smeared neck, and wept.

* * *

_Well, I never explicitly said it was __Charon __who was going to save them all, now did I? ;) Don't relax yet, there's one carload of emotional baggage still left for poor Gob to go through. Thanks very much for the lovely reviews!_


	30. Megaton City Shuffle

_Thanks so much for the wonderful reviews! This chapter was a hell of a slog, and I hope it works just as well for everyone. This kind of chapter is always the hardest. Nejdii: If you want to draw her, go for it! that's really sweet of you to say. :)_

* * *

**Kicking** the door open, Simms slid into the saloon, sweeping the room with his rifle before focusing entirely on Cort, who was currently half-enveloped by Moriarty's bartender. "What in the name..." He trailed off, staring at the pair of them. Both ghoul and girl looked positively horrendous in the light filtering up from her Pip-Boy, gore and blood smeared all over them; from the look of it, most of it had come off or out of her. Seeing Gob with his face pressed against her neck along with the red mess, he spent a terrifying second thinking that the poor bastard had finally gone feral and was trying to eat her, before he noticed she was holding him as tight to her as he was holding on. He opened his mouth again and shut it almost instantly, the look on Cort's face giving him pause.

For once, she wasn't glaring at him with some sort of pig-headed aggression, just looking overwhelmingly tired and resigned. He opened his mouth again, prevented from saying anything this time by the eruption of the girl's dog into the saloon, rushing between his legs and skidding to a halt in the middle of the room, snapping at the air like a fiend until Cort whistled. Brought back to his present surroundings, Simms deftly sidestepped as her second raging horror came barrelling through the door, heralded as Cort had been earlier by an enraged bellow. If he hadn't moved, Simms was half-positive the merc would have shot him to clear the way, looking at the state of him.

"CORT!"

"Ah, nuts." Rapidly weighing her options as Gob jerked away from her out of fearful reflex, Cort chose the one that would settle Charon down the fastest, at least physically, not seeing any other way. There was blood visible everywhere thanks to her aspirating it like a sanguinary water fountain, Gob still only had one damned oar in the water and was currently paddling backwards with it, there were people starting to crowd in the doorway, and thanks to her perpetual avoidance of Simms, she had no idea how the sheriff was going to react to any of what had and was going on. She couldn't afford to be yanked up like a rag doll, and definitely couldn't afford to let the townspeople see a giant ghoul with his arms crushed around a blood-soaked girl with another gore-splattered one behind him. _Oh Christ, I hate doing this_. Hitching in a full breath, she yelled back at him. "_Charon_, you will _STOP_!"

Hearing the harsh tone, he instantly came to a heel-skidding halt and lowered his shotgun, Cort thanking her lucky stars as he stayed silent as well, chalky eyes fixed on her as he waited to see what she would direct him to do next. There was no way she could bring herself to tell him to be quiet, knowing how he might take it. From the way he was glaring at her, he wasn't taking things very well already, and she tried to reassure him. "Don't worry, I'm okay. " Not seeing any of the big man's fury abate, Cort turned and focused back on Gob before she slid into trying to placate Charon any further and lost what small amount of control she had managed to cobble back together. _Oh sweet creeping Jesus, he's not going to settle down until he inspects me for extra holes. And then yells at me. A whole lot. Why couldn't I have come into town earlier and offed Moriarty quietly in his sleep, or shoved a hand grenade into his pants and ran, it would have been so much easier. _ "Gob, come on back over, it's okay."

Simms shook his head slowly, watching the bartender hesitantly move back next to her. Settling down now that there was obviously not going to be any further gun play, at least not for the moment, he had noted the glaring absence of someone who should have been present, someone that should have been down his throat with a shit-eating grin and a silver tongue the moment his boots had crossed the threshold. "I'd say that things are far from okay, Miss Cort. Now where is Colin Moriarty?"

Cort coughed heavily at the same time that Gob twitched, trying to draw attention away from his guilty movement. "Moriarty's dead. _I _killed him. He was murdering Gob, I tried to stop him, he tried to do something, ah, _inappropriate_ to me, and I killed him.""

Feeling a spike of elation at the news that the crafty Irishman was finally out of his hair, Simms immediately suppressed it, finding himself in an inconvenient situation to be clouded by petty emotion. He was happy the bastard was dead, and he had been enough of one for Simms to have no compunctions about feeling that way, but he had still died in his town, and he intended to get to the bottom of it. "Well, then where is he? Moriarty."

Cort jerked her head back. "Behind the bar here."

"I take it you shot him?"

"No, ah, _he_ shot me." Both Simms and Charon looked suddenly alarmed, and she quickly continued. "Through and through, and Gob had Stimpaks, I'm fine."

Simms raised an eyebrow, sensing that something she was telling him wasn't quite true but unable to pin it down as of yet. "Gob looks pretty decent for being almost murdered."

"I'm irradiated." She flicked her wrist around. "To about 800 Rads or so. So now Gob is fine." _Cripes, there's a bald-faced lie if I ever told one. I think his brains are scrambled more than mine right now._

The eyebrow stayed firmly in place. "Do I _want_ to know why you're irradiated?"

She flicked a hand towards Charon. "Because I live with a ghoul, and they like that sort of thing in the sack. Do you have any questions that don't concern my sex life, or do you want to keep being a nosy parker?" Her risqué comment had the desired effect on Simms, which was to make him entirely uncomfortable and put him off his stride. Unfortunately, the words were out of her mouth before she realized the effect they would have on the ghoul next to her, something she was promptly reminded of as Gob gave another violent, startled twitch against her side. _Ah fuck. Tonight's special, Cort and her giant mouth, now hosting her Goddamned foot. Why the hell do I even open my mouth? Nothing good ever comes out of it._

Rolling her eyes and puffing a breath up, Cort let her eyes wander as Simms carefully moved towards her, deciding that he was most likely intent on looking at Moriarty's cooling corpse, and fixed them in place once they reached the open door to the saloon. It was filled with people, practically choked with faces, something that started up the discordant, jangling noise in the back of her head again. _Oh look, the lookieloos. Shoot them, there's a pistol back here, I wonder how many I could shoot before-_

Cort bit her cheek, hard, and then smiled as she addressed the peeping townsfolk. "Folks, I don't think the saloon's open. So why are you here? Want to try coming in? Want to have a _word_?" The assembled unassociated parties took one look at her, a _real _look, seeing the wild hair, the bloodstained lower half of her face, saw the too-white teeth rimed in even more red as she smiled, and scattered, sudden ideas of just what it was she had done to Moriarty lighting up in their heads and running wild. Watching them go, she felt a surge of something dark and wonderful, something that delighted as they fled, before it crumpled into something ineffably tired.

She considered leaving, or shooting Simms, or just flat out falling on the floor and wailing until Charon picked her up and took care of everything for her, and decided she couldn't be that gutless or do that to Gob. She had made this mess, and wouldn't leave him in it. No matter what she had told Moriarty, what she had spat out to keep the bastard from thinking he had won or that he had _any_ iota of power over her, Cort was sick with guilt. _I've already done enough to him. More than enough. I just waltz through, get myself stabbed, and...oh God. He saved me. Who would have thought. _ She took a breath and looked back up as Simms leaned himself over the scarred countertop, seemingly having ignored her byplay with the people outside entirely

Seeing what was there, he swallowed heavily before pushing back to look at Cort. "_You _did _that_." She shrugged in response, then folded her hands and leaned on the bar. Simms tried not to look at the blood flaking off of her fingers, which led him to look back to her face. He didn't find it a much better alternative. There was next to nothing of the guileless, dotty girl he had tried to protect there, her face hard and her eyes flat and haunted. He asked her a question, one that included not only what was behind the bar, but what had happened to the changed creature leaning nonchalantly over it, blandly waiting for his next words. No stranger to the world as it was, he already knew the answer, and wished he was enough of a fool not to. "Why?"

The old contemptuous look she usually reserved for him was back in a flash. "Why? _Why_? Because he was a sick, abusive, slave-owning fuck, that's _why_. You think tonight was something new? He was beating the shit out of Gob for months, _months_!" Cort tried to put as much scorn into her face and voice as possible, looking to keep the upper hand. "Don't you frigging know about anything that goes on in _your_ town?"

Nettled by the tone and the fact that he had had at least a general idea of what had been going on and hated himself for ignoring it out of necessity, Simms snapped back at her. "I know that you've just stirred up one hell of a giant ant's nest."

Cort pushed up and spread her arms, looking incredulous. "Damn STRAIGHT I did! You sure as shit weren't doing anything."

"As I have tried to tell you multiple times Miss Cort, you don't appreciate the nuances of having to deal with the responsibility of running this town. I couldn't afford-" He was cut off as she dug the knife in even further.

You couldn't afford to _what_? Risk anything on helping a second-class citizen because of your precious status quo? I am mightily _tired_ of people who can't afford to do the right thing, including myself, and I'm not going to do it anymore, I am _tired _of rolling over." Cort ran both hands through her hair, cresting it up with gore and inadvertently getting her continued silence out of Simms, the sheriff uncontrollably fixating on what he thought was a piece of Moriarty's skull over one ear, set like a piece of polished ivory. "Don't get me wrong, I understand exactly why you did what you did, and I really don't want to interfere. I don't want to be responsible for any of this. You're a good person, even if you were a meddling, lying jerk when I first got here, and you do a good job. This is a nice, safe town, one which I am looking forward to finally settling into. But I'm not going to turn a blind _fucking_ eye when I see something I know is wrong."

He shook his head, still refusing to back down. "Miss Cort, what went on tonight is what's wrong." Cort pushed up on her toes and lightly slapped her hands on the bar, appearing to mull his statement over, Simms letting her do it. Her expression changed again as she did, looking at him with a queer sort of thoughtfulness, and he suddenly felt like he was some small locked box she was turning around to see from every angle, the sensation thankfully departing as she responded.

"Wrong? Naaah, way I see it, this leaves you in a favourable position. Moriarty's gone, and it's totally unrelated to you. There's even witnesses. You've got a thorn out of your side, a relatively consolidated power base, and you're off scott free because the batshit Vault kid had one of her 'moments'. Believe me, I understand why you didn't keep Colin from beating the hell out of Gob, or the thousand other little things."

"I had no way of stop-"

"_I AM TALKING_!" Simms froze as the light slaps became a double-fisted slam and her face shifted back into what had instantly provoked Moriarty into trying to kill her, the glasses left on the bar jumping at the force of the impact. Cort drew in a ragged breath and let it out slowly, smiling again when she finished. "Do you mind? Thank you. As I was saying. It would've been a huge can of worms, and you've got a son. Parents will do some damned dirty things or ignore a lot to protect their kids; I've had some excellent first hand experience to teach me that. I don't know if it's biological selective blindness or intelligent insanity, whatever. Understanding however, does not mean that I approve. So be happy that your life's just been simplified, Simms. Won't it be nice that Gob will have his own bar, Nova won't be on her back, and there'll stop being piss in the still. Speaking of!"

Cort brightened once more as Nova careened through the door, doing a crazy goose step around the sheriff to prevent a collision before sliding to a stop next to Charon and Dogmeat. She had stayed obediently next to Cromwell even after the merc and Simms had gone through the door, but hearing Cort scream again had broken her resolve, finding herself instantly unable to stand not knowing what had happened to Gob. She smiled brilliantly at Cort, who smiled back, much warmer than the one she had directed at Simms and with a severely reduced level of insanity, and then moved to Gob.

Looking at him, Nova felt her rising happiness at her successful gambit falter. He wasn't smiling; what he was doing was giving her a guarded, distrustful look. _Well sugar, you knew that might happen. Just hope you can explain it all later. If he'll listen, anyway._ She wasn't foolish enough to expect much. After years of mistreatment and teasing, Gob wasn't big on giving second chances to people who had tricked him by turning a false friendliness into honest abuse. How was he supposed to be able to tell the difference if for once, it was the other way around?

Cort flicked her eyes from Nova to Gob, the same look she had had on her face when she examined Simms back on it as she watched the silent interplay. She shook her head as that party loudly cleared his throat, seemingly putting away whatever she was thinking about for a later perusal as he regained her full attention. "Where was I. Oh yes. So now if you don't mind, sheriff, I'd like to go home now. I've had a long day."

Simms irritation with her finally flashed over into real anger, and he found himself wanting to do nothing more than wash his hands of her entirely, no matter what she had done for the town. "Well, I can honestly say that I do mind. I can't say I appreciate your heavy-handed attitude, Miss Cort, and I appreciate the problems you've brought into my town even less. I'm not going to say I haven't made some mistakes here, but I can keep from making any further ones. I'm sorry. After this, and the issues your..._preferences_ are going to bring up, I'm going to have to evict you and your companion from Megaton."

A number of small things happened in rapid succession. Cort felt herself coming apart at the seams again as Gob panicked at the idea of her being cast out and clamped back onto her even tighter, preventing her from flying over the bar and going for Simm's throat. Charon readied himself to blow half of the town away, rapidly calculating at the same time how he was going to manage a full-scale bugout of everything they would need afterwards, or how to infiltrate later if immediate retrieval proved impossible. Nova backed herself into her corner, Dogmeat started snarling, his hackles rucking up, and Cromwell reached out and politely tapped Simms on the shoulder, who came within an inch of cutting the seemingly fatuous holy man in half. Wrapped up in paying attention to the byplay between Cort and the sheriff, nobody had noticed the Confessor entering.

"No, Lucas, I don't think so."

Simms boggled at this new assault from an entirely unexpected quarter. "Wha-_Cromwell_?"

"Both the girl and her companion will be remaining in our fair town indefinitely. Nothing shall be done to jeopardize the sanctity of Megaton, the safety of the Blessed of Atom, or the holy Consort." Cromwell laced his fingers together in front of himself and smiled his batty, beatific smile. Cort thought it might have been the most beautiful thing in the world to her at that moment.

"Holy _what_?"

"Yeah. Hi."

Simms shook his head as Cort twiddled her fingers at him, feeling his exasperation returning. He had hoped to keep the Atomites from finding out about the girl until he had figured out what to do with her, and was now faced with an entirely new set of troubles. "Cromwell, you don't get to make that kind of decision. As sheriff of this town, this type of thing is my call, and you are well aware of that."

"No I _can't_ make the call, but _we_ can make things exceedingly difficult for you in regards to the decisions we _can_ make. Your position is still controlled by a popular vote, Lucas. If you should wish to keep it..." Cromwell unfolded his hands, turned the palms upwards in supplication and smiled. "May the might of Atom shine down upon you and lift your eyes to the proper choice."

Cort chirped up before the beleaguered sheriff could spit out another word. "Oh well good! Thank you Cromwell, for sorting that all out. I'll see you tomorrow Simms, and you can tell me if there's anything that I need to pitch in with while I'm here. 'Kay? I think Gob would probably like to close up. Right Gob?" She gave him a wide grin, looking like nothing so much as the cat who ate the canary, while the bartender appeared to finally wake up to the general proceedings, levelling him with an uncertain but steady glare.

"Y-yes. So why don't you get out, and-and stay out. You were good at that."

Beset from all angles(and it _was_ all angles, even the girl's damned _dog_ looked like he was laughing at him and the situation he had somehow ended up in), Simms slung his rifle over his shoulder and threw his hands up, sick of the entire affair. He had somehow been neatly herded into a corner, and he wasn't sure which was pissing him off more, that or the knowledge that he had helped set himself up for it months in advance. He tipped his hat at Cort, sounding petty and getting even more enervated at hearing that come out of himself. "Fine, Miss Cort. You just let me know if you all need anything. Good _night_." Simms left, attempting to slam the door, something that was prevented by Cromwell, who turned, bowed out with the same daffy smile, and then shut it quietly, looking immensely pleased with himself.

The festivities seemingly over for the evening, Cort looked towards Charon and tried to keep her face neutral, knowing if she allowed even a smidgen of distress to come through on it he would take it as a silent release from the previous command she had given and instantly come over. He hadn't moved once aside from when she had made her outburst at Simms, but his fingertips were twitching in an almost imperceptible fluttering, and his lips were pressed together so hard they had almost disappeared entirely, broadcasting what he wanted to do in body language so loudly familiar to her by now it was almost a scream. What Charon wanted was to yell at her at length and then tug on her hair until they were both feeling comforted, and either one would currently crack her like an egg.

Not helping matters was the fact that she had no idea what he potentially wanted to do to Gob. She didn't think he was mad about that, considering he had barely glanced at the other ghoul, but there was no way he hadn't taken note of him using her like an irradiated teddy bear. _Had _used her like an irradiated teddy bear. After her status as a citizen had been cemented, he had let go of her again and slid away like he had after her admission of intimacy with Charon. If she had had any doubts about whether or not he was upset over that revelation, they departed at that second retreat.

For someone who had won what could be considered a major personal coup, Cort felt terrible, like a socially inept reject, and possibly like crawling into any convenient hole to spare herself the consequences of her clumsiness. _ Possibly? Definitely. Why didn't you ever go over stuff like this, Dad? _She sighed, still looking at Charon. No matter what the reason for her distress, Cort did not think bawling like a little girl in mixed company would help the high-toned iron bitch image she was attempting to broadcast, was almost positive it would damage the political footing she had just gained, and reluctantly did something that guaranteed she would be getting absolutely bellowed at later.

"Charon, Nova, give me a few alone with Gob, okay? I'll meet you both back at the house. " Brow instantly furrowing, Charon opened his mouth to protest as Nova shrugged and went outside, Cort cutting him off before he could in a tone of voice that clearly stated she would brook no further objections. "_Please_, Charon."

She winced as the big man's face went completely blank, confirming for sure that he was inordinately pissed off with her. Giving her one last, hard glare, Charon spun on his feet and left, slamming the door so hard it jumped in its frame.

* * *

**Leaning** on the railing where Moriarty had spent so much of his time brooding over the town, Simms shook his head, looked up, and addressed the starred expanse as Charon came out of the saloon and slammed the door. "What did I do to deserve this?" He got his answer from an entirely unexpected quarter, possibly the antithesis of the one he was hoping for a response from, the big ghoul looming out of the darkness like some sort of Faustian oracle.

"You were the first person who crossed her. That's it. Sucks to be you, fella." He turned to Nova, latching onto his orders until he could latch onto Cort and reprimand the everliving hell out of her. "You. Redhead."

"It's Nova."

"Whatever. Get moving. That way." He pointed, and then paused, belatedly remembering something. "_Please_."

Nova shrugged. Whatever was going to happen, the heavy hitting was over, and she was more than willing to leave Gob with Cort for the moment, still not having any idea of what she would say to him. "Whatever you say, sugar."

When they had gone far enough for him to be doubly sure the ghoul was out of earshot, Simms quietly resumed talking to himself. "I should have just up and shot her, moment I laid eyes on her." He shook his head again, not really meaning it. He knew better. He had a kid. He just shouldn't have lied. _This is going to be one hell of a mess. Since you asked for this job and want to keep the fool thing, I guess you better do it. _ Simms went back home to return to bed, clinging to the vain hope that things would be clearer in the morning, like they always seemed to for everything else. He wasn't surprised when sleep was a long time coming.

* * *

**"So. ** Hi, Gob."

"Hi."

"Feeling better?"

"I don't know. Better and worse. Cort, why aren't you dead?"

"I think I'd prefer to hear something like, 'yippie, you're alive!' I'm happy you're alive, no thanks to me." He said nothing, just continued staring straight ahead, and she sighed. "I'm not dead because I'm not technically altogether human anymore. If I'm irradiated enough, I regenerate just like a ghoul does."

'But you're not one. A ghoul."

"No."

"But you're fucking one."

Hurt by the coarse language, Cort fell silent for a while, thinking. "You're mad at me."

Gob flicked a cigarette butt off of the bar, giving her a sidelong glance. "Kinda."

"Because I told you I wasn't going to get involved with anyone, and then I did. With a ghoul."

"Yeah."

"Look, I didn't exactly see it coming. I mean, Charon." She sped up as he turned his head away and stared at the other end of the bar. "Gob, one of the reasons I told you that, a big reason, is I'm sterile, because of what I can do. I figured nobody would want me, and I didn't really think about ghouls, not like that, not then. And then Charon, well we went through a lot together and the stuff he's done, he-"

Gob slapped a hand over his eyes and cut her off, nearly yelling. "Shut the hell up Cort, I don't want to hear the fucking smutty details!"

She went quiet again for a long moment, staring at her own hands. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Look, I know it was stupid, okay? This is like what, the sixth time I've met you? I haven't even known you a full week yet, if you wanna be exact, so what the fuck was I expecting? And really, I get it, do I _ever_. You're out there with huge, strong and dangerous everyday, and girls go for that. I won't ask why not me, I _know_ why not me. I mean if you're going to slum it with a ghoul," Gob jammed his hands into his pockets and turned his head away again, unable to face the hurt look she was giving him, and started to belittle himself. "Why not pick one that isn't a worthless sack of shit? I mean, what am I, really. Just some dumb fuck rotbag that got nabbed by slavers ten minutes out of Underworld, and I'm serious, did I tell you that? Ten motherfucking minutes, aren't I a prize, and spent over a decade after that as some gutless doormat, pardon me, gutless _punching_ bag, doing everything except taking it up the _fucking_ ass and waiting-"

Upset at how bitter Gob sounded, inexperienced in matters such as this, and just wanting to fix things as his voice started to scale higher and began to crack, Cort made a sweet, terminally clumsy and dangerous error. If she had had more exposure to adult relationships outside of Charon, someone effectively more naive than she was in terms of intimacy, she might have had some inkling of the shaky ground she was walking on, and tried an entirely different approach. If it had been anyone else, the idea that the person next to her was more than a little emotionally unstable and could potentially lash out in her direction might have occurred to her as well(the horrifying state of Moriarty's body meant nothing to her; with the way she had been going, it struck her as perfectly normal for Gob to have bludgeoned his face down to the sinus cavities after what he had gone through, and she had planned to do worse). As it was, she did what she usually did when she was distressed; the first blessed thing that popped into her head. Placing her hands on either side of his head and turning it around, Cort caressed the sides of his face and neck as she looked into his eyes, trying to calm him down.

"_Stop_ it! I won't let you-" That was as far as she was able to get before Gob snapped, wrenched his hands out of his pockets and grabbed her with a strangled sob, pressing his lips to hers and pinning her against the bar. More than a little poleaxed, Cort threw her arms up in surprise and completely, mentally stalled for a moment before her brain kicked back into high gear, scrabbling around in an emotional panic. _What! What, no, what, what oh, oh crap. What did I do now, what's he doing? No. He's doing a no. Get him off, how, it's Gob, shit, I can't hit _Gob,_ all he gets is hit!_ Cort conveniently still holding her arms out like she was caught in a holdup, what Gob got then was his hands on the soft flesh at the top of her sides, his thumbs running down the sides of her breasts, and the last bits of her scattered mind sheared into a cold, hard focus. _Fine. I'll hit him another way._

_

* * *

_

**If **the last two months had been a living hell for Gob, and they had been, where he was now was absolute heaven. Driven to the point of breaking and past it through endless mental and physical abuse, it only took a small nudge in the opposite direction for it to happen again, one kind touch to set the other side of his emotions loose, and Gob again found himself doing something he had dreamed of. This was something he had been happy to dream of, and was so much easier. It was everything he had thought it would be, more even, _much _more, feeling her soft lips against his, her heartbeat against his palms, and the radiation pouring out of her like a soothing flood as he pushed himself against her. It was better than anything he could have imagined, and he was convinced he would be better for her than anyone else could be.

He had an instant to feel all of this before Cort pushed back and twisted him around, grabbing his neck in a grip like iron and painfully slamming him against the bar as she returned his kiss in a crushing bruise. He had another instant to feel an ill-contained surge of _something_ out of her, something dark and vicious and overwhelming, intoxicating and utterly _terrifying_ at the same time, something far too big for him to handle, before she was gone again in a flash, leaving him gasping against the scarred wood and feeling like he had been slapped.

* * *

**Cort** stared at Gob, feeling the dark thing slipping around in the back of her head like a sick, ephemeral snake, and suddenly found herself wanting nothing more than to rip him entirely to shreds. "_Never_ do that again, Gob. Charon would kill you if he saw that, _I _would...I'd...I want...just little fucking _pieces_..." She took in the look on his face, the same look he had had when she got his letters back, staring at her like she was someone he had never seen before, and realized what she had been about do to. What she still _wanted_ to do. _He's my friend, my first friend, I'm not supposed to _hurt_ those, and this is my fault, and...I need to do something...oh God it HURTS..._ Not entirely sure of what she was going to do when she reached Gob but knowing she had to, _someone_ had to hold onto her and keep her from flying apart, she took a step towards him, and then stopped as he flinched."Oh. You're scared of me. Good." Cort clutched her aching head, shut her eyes, and hit the floor in a sobbing heap.


	31. I Find Yourself in Me

_Thanks for the new reviews/faves and holy freaking MOLY, I just got the most awesome piece of fanart ever! Check my profile for a link to Nejdii's sweetass picture of Cort!_

_

* * *

_

**Staring** at the crying girl at his feet, her dog now nosing around her face and whining, Gob got what was his first steady grasp on reality in weeks as Cort finally slid all of the way off the pedestal he had placed her on to keep himself going. "Cort?" He looked from her to his hands and back again, feeling a dawning sense of horror. _What did I do, oh sweet Jesus, what did I _do_? What the fuck was I expecting her to do?_ _How could I expect her to do _anything_? She's so small._

He stood there for a long moment, hunched up with his hands held in front of himself like they were some kind of unrecognizable, unwanted objects, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do now. What he wanted to do was hold and comfort her, you were supposed to do that if girls were crying, but he had _made _her cry, he was the one who had hurt someone for a change, and he was terrified that touching her again would make everything worse. She had touched him and that had made things better, but well, _that _was never going to happen again, and this wasn't supposed to happen at _all_, he was supposed to take _care_ of her, for fuck's sakes, not force himself on her like some anim-

_I was supposed to take care of her. She told me to._ Gob's thoughts derailed for what seemed like the dozenth time as he remembered what Carol had told him in her letters, those precious things that had disappeared again a week after Cort had left, the wonderful, tidy lines telling him that she had lied to Carol to spare her feelings and his dignity. _'You look after her Gobby, she's out there with no one, and so young compared to us, compared to anyone out here, really. I know my brave, successful son can manage that, and she thinks the world of you.' I looked after her, all right. I did just perfect._

He might have stalled there indefinitely, wrapped up in a circular loop of self-recrimination and guilt if he hadn't finally realized where Cort was sitting. She was plopped right in the middle of the drying pool of blood that had run out of Moriarty's ravaged head, and the sight of any part of the torturing fuck touching her was unbearable. Gathering his wits up and mashing them firmly into place with a strength born out of long suffering, Gob reached down and half dragged, half carried the weeping ball of her out of the clotting mess, depositing Cort on the far side where the floor was relatively clean and dropping down beside her.

Pulling his knees up, he scooted himself against her as the dog took up the opposite side, wrapped one arm around his legs and the other around her, gripping tightly when she didn't move away. "Cort? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...to..." Unable to think of any way to apologize that wouldn't fall dismally short of how much he felt he needed to, not sure of how he could _ever_ apologize for what he thought he had done to her, he tried a different tack. "Hey, you're my best friend, you know that?" He felt something in him drop as she cried even harder, felt like it was going to fall all the way to the bottom of his guts and crash there until she leaned into him, one hand fisting up the side of his pants and the other in the dog's ruff until her knuckles turned white.

Cort stayed like that until her sobs had turned into snuffling, and her snuffles into somewhat steady breathing before relaxing, slowly letting herself go limp as she determined she was back in control and not apt to slip. "Okay, I think I'm done, I think I'm safe. I'm sorry."

Gob sighed with relief, erroneously taking her safe comment as a reassurance that she still trusted him to be near her, instead of the other way around. "No, _I'm _sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I've been having a real shitty time of it lately, not that that's an excuse. I just thought...I don't know what I thought. I haven't been able to think."

"Are you mad because it took me this long to get back?"

Gob sighed again and shook his head. "No. It isn't your fault that Moriarty was a sick fuck. There was no way you could know what was going on."

"Are you still kinda mad? Because of Charon."

"I can't say I'm thrilled to the gills or anything, but no. I'm not mad at you for that, either." _Definitely still mad otherwise. Just not at her. There's no way he deserves her. He must have done something to make her...oh Jesus. Maybe that's why she fell apart. How am I supposed to take care of _that _one, Carol? Oh crap, crap, how is he going to take care of ME?_ "Cort, are you going to tell Charon I..." He trailed off and winced, imagining what kind of new agony could potentially be awaiting him, the things he had seen and heard of the big merc doing in Underworld giving him plenty of material to work with. He didn't think it could be any worse than what Moriarty had done to him; he _knew_ it could be worse.

Cort snuffled and thought about it. Someone had to tell him, there was no way that she could keep that under her hat. She didn't think that it had been anything wrong, but she felt trying to keep it a secret would make it that way. _I can't do it, he'd think I was asking him to do something about it, flip his lid and annihilate Gob. But if Gob did...it'd make him think_. "Kissed me? No, _you're_ going to tell him."

"_What_?"

She darted a hand out and grabbed his shirt to keep him from toppling over as he gave a shocked jerk. "You heard me. You're not throwing me under _that_ proverbial bus when you were the one driving it. I'd think really carefully about how and when you're going to do that before you do, too."

Gob swallowed heavily and hugged his knees. "He'll turn me into paste."

"No he won't, not as long as you tell him _I'm_ the one that told you to tell him. That's the important bit. Don't forget that."

Scrambling to think, he pushed a question over to Cort to distract both of them from the subject as she patted him on the back. "So what now?"

Cort sniffled and wiped her face with the back of her bare hand, smearing the red mess on it around even further. "Now, we go back to my place, you're not staying here with Mister Cratered and Gooey there. We have to regardless, Charon's angry with me and Nova's probably worried sick about you. It'll only get worse the longer we wait."

Gob snorted, a brief, cynical expulsion that she didn't much like the sound of. "Nova doesn't give a shit about me."

Cort looked at him like he had suddenly displayed a terminal streak of stupid. Even if the redhead's claim about Gob being near to dead had been somewhat exaggerated(something which Cort intended to bring up at the earliest convenience, wondering if she still would have been aerated if she _hadn't _burst in like a brainless lunatic bent on destruction), her concern had hadn't been. "Gob, _Nova's_ the one that came and got me in the first place, not that I accomplished much. She was nearly out of her mind, she was so upset." Seeing the surprised look on his face, she added another tidbit of information to the picture she was making in her head. _She likes him, and he likes her, but she hid it, and don't I just know the exact reason why. It's over there, starting to bloat up on the floor. Smart, very smart, Nova_. _You got me way too upset though, you tricky little frigger. If I couldn't-_

Looking down, she plucked at her shirt, dropping her voice down to almost a whisper. "_Please_ don't tell anyone that I can do that. Regenerate. Charon, Barrows and Moira are the only ones who do. I don't need anyone else knowing I'm a giant sterile freak and trying to blow my brains out, or turn me into a lab rat." She blinked raising her voice into something louder and more accusatory, reminded of something. "Dogmeat, you get away from Momma right now. I'm going to have to put a whole bag of Rad-Away into you, at _least_."

"I won't tell anyone. I promise." Thinking about that suddenly brought something else back to his attention, something that made his mind fling into overdrive again, swamping him with thoughts of what Charon was capable of."Oh Jesus, Cort. I _shot_ you, _I fucking shot_-"

Cort cut him off as his voice scaled into a panicky squeak. "Well, did you mean to?"

"No!"

"Then stop getting your undies in a knot. M'fine. And I would advise you to definitely _not_ tell Charon about that."

"Oh well no _shit_, Cort."

Deciding to get Gob on the move before he could fling himself into any more unhealthy nervous fits, Cort stood up and made a face at the wet tearing noise her rear made detaching from the floor. _Oh eeew, there's Irish asshole insides all over me. Gag. _"Speaking of undies. Do you have a spare set of clothes? For yourself, I mean."

Gob stared down intently at his sneakers, appearing to find the laces on them suddenly fascinating. "...No."

She kept her tone absently cheerful. "Oh well good, you need them then. I've got a ton that won't fit me or Charon. Fucking things are taking up a whole locker. Come on." This was a patent lie; being the shorter of the pair, she could potentially wear anything as long as she tucked it in or rolled it up enough. Looking at the state of Gob's clothing and taking an accurate guess, she had decided to go around wearing a sack if it meant he could be in something other than the same white-gone-grey shirt and frayed pants she had always seen him inhabiting, 'wearing' seeming too light a word. _Something clean, several somethings. I don't even want to know when the last time he was allowed to wash those things was. I bet not since I left the last time._

Sighing, Gob looked around reluctantly. "Cort, as much as I want to get the fuck out of here, do I _ever_, I can't leave this place empty. Once it gets around that Moriarty is dead and the saloon is deserted, someone'll loot it clean. If it's mine now, I'd like to have something to come back to aside from the walls and the kitchen sink." He let his shoulders slump. "They probably wouldn't even leave me the sink. _Or_ the walls."

"Oh. Don't worry, that's no prob-wait, do you have any Rad-Away here? I need some." She smiled as he nodded and hauled himself up, heading for the storeroom. "Thank you. Dogmeat!" Cort smiled wider as the animal came over, holding one hand out to keep him from getting too close. "Do you want to guard the building for Momma and Gob?" She laughed and clapped as he whuffed and sat up, tongue lolling out in a grin. "That's my best boy, you just sic 'em, rip them _up_ if they try to come in." The grin was joined by a deep-chested snarl, an entirely unnerving and rather horrific combination which Gob thankfully missed. He came back from the storeroom with a bag of the orange glop in one hand and a skeptical look on his face.

"Cort, what if someone hurts him? I don't want him hurt."

Shrugging, she took the proffered bag and inserted the needle into one of Dogmeat's forelegs, who looked entirely unimpressed with it. "Then I'll gut them. They wouldn't get close enough anyway. _He's_ gutted a Deathclaw before, and with the way he'll sound off if someone even rattles the knobs, they won't even try. Here, hold this, I don't want to stand too close to him."

He boggled at her. "A _Deathclaw_? No way."

"Yes way. Charon told me, and I don't think he knows how to exaggerate." She shrugged again as she leaned forward to rub noses with Dogmeat, the only contact she was willing to risk until she was flushed out entirely. "Good things come in small packages."

Gob looked down at the top of her fluffy, tangle-haired head, slowly nodding his own. "Yeah. They do."

* * *

**Cort** cautiously pushed in the door to her house and looked around carefully to note the locations of everyone as she walked in, prepared for an onslaught of oversized upset mercenary. Nova was sitting primly on the couch, and had stood up when they entered, the guarded expression on her face changing to something hopeful at the speculative look Gob gave her in return. Charon was standing more or less in the center of the room looking just plain old pissed, straight as a poker but with his arms crossed as he glared at her. Cort relaxed slightly, seeing what was for him a relatively informal posture, under the circumstances._ Angry but not insecure, good. Wait no, angry with me, that's not good! Ah jeeze._ Not quite ready to face him yet, she flicked her eyes over to Nova. "So. _Almost _dead, huh?"

Nova shrugged and gave her a demure little smile, still twiddling her fingers as she continued her slow march through withdrawal. "I'm a _whore_, not a doctor."

"_Cort_."

Her pathetic attempt at stalling curtailed by a sharp rasp from Charon, Cort walked over to him, looking penitent as Gob skulked his way over next to the bookcase against the stairs while carefully keeping an eye on everyone. "I'm sorry. I got stabbed, and then I got shot." _Then I fell apart and lost some more of my marbles, but we won't tell you that, will we_. "But I'm feeling _much_ better now."

He dropped his arms and snarled, shaking his head. "You're a total _fucking_ mess. Where?"

She patted at herself. "Well thanks for that. You're just pissed because I got into one without you. Here, and here."

Jerking the hem of her shirt up, he took a quick look at where she had been shot and dismissed it almost immediately, moving his attention to her chest and swearing loudly when he roughly yanked the collar down, running a thumb over the fresh, pink scar he found. "_Fuck_ sakes. Do you have _any_ idea how close this came."

Cort winced as he grabbed and shook her, his fingers digging painfully into her shoulders, feeling pained not so much at the treatment but at the naked worry he was finally letting surface on his face. "Of course I do, and it doesn't matter how close, I promised, remember? Besides, Gob was there, he did fine offing that slimebag."

The big ghoul blinked, momentarily sidetracked out of upbraiding her. "..._What_?"

"I just said it was me because it was better for everyone to think it was."

Charon and Nova both turned from looking at her to stare at Gob as Cort flicked a hand towards him, who promptly hunched and shoved his hands even deeper into his pockets to keep himself from compulsively grabbing a glass off of the bookcase to polish, not thinking he was doing very fine at all. What happened next didn't improve matters, in his opinion.

Tired, nerves jangled and strained, Charon shook his head and turned it back to Cort, finally taking note of just how hard he was holding onto her and letting up while trying to keep his voice calm. _Don't fucking tell her she can't go anywhere without you, she'll get stubborn and then where the fuck will you be. Up shit creek with no fucking paddle the next time something batshit happens. _"Can you go _anywhere _by yourself without shit happening to you?"

Cort shrugged and gave him a self-deprecating smile. "...No?"

Charon shook his head again and just let the whole thing go. It was over with, there was nothing he could do to change what had happened, and it was pointless to waste any more effort on the matter. "_Fuck_, Cort. You wear me out, you know that?"

"Maybe later." Watching his fingertips twitch in a weird counterpoint to Nova's, she sighed and tilted her head forward, wishing they were alone but willing to settle for the time being. "Go on, oh please. I know you want to. I'm sorry I had to stop you before."

Giving in to the impulse, Charon buried both hands in her hair as Cort closed her eyes and hugged him, the tension finally running out of him as he gently tugged at it, bringing her head against his chest and stroking the back of her neck. Fuming in the house had allowed him time to calm down, and the combination of being able to fuss at Cort with the radiation seething out of her did the rest. He let go of her long enough to pick her up, one strong arm around her waist and a hand back in her hair as he kissed her, grunting contentedly as her own arms wrapped around his neck, slender and reassuring. He paused a moment later to glare at the two people staring at them, one gape-mouthed and the other looking slightly ill, both of whom suddenly seemed to find everything from the walls to their feet extremely interesting. Both snapped their eyes immediately back to the pair as soon as Charon's were off of them.

For all that had happened to Nova tonight and the preceding months of being drugged out of her tree near constantly, watching what was going on now did more to knock her out of it than anything else. She had been around for Cromwell's 'Holy Consort' comment, and was more than aware of what the word meant, but figured the man had been using it in an entirely different way. _Apparently not. Oh sugar, sugar._ _Can I do that? Of course I can. Do I want to, is the question._ Nova slanted her eyes and glanced at Gob. Kissing him and thinking about more while high was one thing, doing anything while sober was quite another. Wasn't it?

Oblivious to Nova's subtle scrutiny, Gob watched Cort and Charon from beside her, no less shocked but for an entirely different reason. The yelling and shaking he had expected, and he had been frantically trying to figure out what to do to protect Cort before anything worse happened before _this_ had happened. He was half-wondering if he was still insensible, seeing the range of emotions spilling out on Charon's face and voice, which had dropped into something soothing as he pressed his forehead against Cort's. _He loves her. I didn't think...and since when is that new._

"Why the fuck didn't you come get me? You're not going..." Charon stopped, wanting to phrase things correctly. She still looked guilty, and guilty Cort would obey whatever he said, as long as he didn't provoke one of her rapid mood changes by pushing too hard. Angry Cort would definitely _not_ obey. Angry Cort would get defensive and basically tell him to go piss up a rope, with a few hundred extra words crammed in. Charon was coming to the realization that he was having to constantly learn new ways to control her in situations where she didn't want to be, and was currently giving himself a crash-course in manipulative verbal subtlety, ironically picking it up from the very person he needed to use it on. "You should have returned here first, and you're not going anywhere in future without the mutt with you. With him all the time, Cort." That was an adequate solution, the animal being the only thing aside from himself that he actually trusted to protect her, and one she capitulated to immediately, nodding and looking meek. He paused again, belatedly realizing something. "Wait, where _is_ the mutt?"

Cort blinked at the sudden about face. " Oh. He's guarding the saloon. I _am_ really sorry, Charon. I wasn't thinking."

He rolled his eyes and snorted. "When are you _ever_."

Sensing that she was finally off the hook, she grinned. "Most of the time. Right now I'm thinking I need to eat something. A lot of somethings, I'm _hungry_." She turned her head around, something occurring to her. "Gob, are you? You have to be, if ah. Uhm."

Putting aside the mind-numbing revelations for the time being in favour of something base and simple, Gob nodded, knowing what she was trying to get at. "Yeah." He was definitely hungry; truthfully, he felt like he was halfway to starving. He hadn't been fed much as a rule, Moriarty being a cheap bastard in all respects, and Cort healing up every lingering injury at once had only made it even worse.

"Okay, come on then. Charon, please go push the beds apart." Giving her hair one last pull before setting her down, Charon headed back up the stairs as Cort beckoned Gob towards the tiny kitchen area, looking unimpressed when he came back down after a few seconds of thumps and scraping. He had a general idea of what she was now planning, and it didn't bode well for whatever her plans for him had been previously. The expression shifted into something close to disgusted pity, looking at the pair huddled in front of the refrigerator. Both were eating, but Gob was doing it with the furtive speed of a starved dog, shoving the food into his mouth and swallowing so quickly he almost managed to choke himself. Cort plucked the Deviled Eggs box he had been massacring out of his grasp and briskly slapped him on the back with the heel of her other hand as he coughed and struggled to clear his throat. "Cripes Gob, it's not going to go anywhere. One at a time. Here. Once you finish the box you can pull the drape and get cleaned up, l'll go dig you out some clothes, _aaand _one hell of a lot of letters! Carol gave me just oodles of them."

"Don't you look at him like that."

Charon snapped his head down to look at Nova, who had come over and quietly hissed at him. "Like what." He looked back over to Cort, who was now handing the other, now much happier-looking man food in portions to keep him from bolting it.

"You know _exactly _like what. I heard all about you from Gob, stuck in your own hellhole. The way I see it sugar, you're just an overgrown version of him, toting a gun instead of a bar rag and with one hell of a burr up your ass. So don't you look at him like he's some pathetic piece of dirt. You don't have any right. Nobody does."

Interest suddenly piqued and rather impressed that the redhead had attempted to scold him(_had _scolded him, he admitted, he had been entirely rankled by her comments, finding the parity in them), Charon carefully schooled his face back into neutrality, now surreptitiously watching Nova as she turned her attention back to Gob, who was currently being loaded up with an armful of spare clothing and a pile of clean rags topped with a plastic-wrapped bundle of correspondence. The diatribe she had given him was something like what Cort would have said to someone looking at him that way, if she chose to talk instead of jumping straight into pummelling the everliving snot out of them. Deciding that now was not the time to get wrapped up in frivolous musings, Charon pushed the matter aside for the immediate future and refocused on Cort, who was finally finishing up with the damned bartender.

After making sure that everything she gave Gob would fit(it would, and she had nearly fallen apart again during this, hoping Moriarty rotted his way through all nine circles of Hell after watching the wondering, childlike way the ghoul had handled the pairs of socks, holding them almost as tightly as the bundle of Carol's letters), Cort stepped out of the kitchen and jerked the blanket closed, then talked to both it and Nova. "O-okay, once you're done, go to sleep, go directly to sleep, I know I need to. Top of the stairs, room on the left. There's a bed for each of you in there."

"What?" Came out of Nova.

"What!" Came from behind the blanket.

Cort hid a grin at the simultaneous expulsions and addressed both of them again, Nova directly and Gob through the pair of wide, chalky eyes that were now peeping over the impromptu drape. "Both have you have gone through hell and come back out, and you're not staying where hell happened. Not tonight." Truthfully, Cort was almost positive that Nova was more or less on an even keel, aside from the obvious signs of withdrawal. She was positively certain that the redhead had feelings for Gob, and knew for an absolute fact that he had them back. _What better nursemaids for themselves than each other? They'll be acting so goofy they won't have time to worry about anything else. They need to sort it out sooner or later anyway, they already live together. Sally forth, you shy violets. _ Cort clapped her hands lightly and balanced on her toes, feeling more hopeful at the thought of them together, and excited at the prospect of using her little Infirmary. The idea alone of being able to flush her own system out without having to use a gallon of vomit-inducing Rad-Away felt almost sinful, it was so nice. "Right, so Nova! Detox, food and bed sound good?"

Nova flexed her twitching hands and smiled at her again, this time with open relief. If she could think clear all the way, maybe things would be clearer to her. "More than good, sugar. Lead on, it's your show 'till the sun comes up."

* * *

**W**atching Cort and Nova head up the stairs, Charon decided that they were sufficiently out of earshot in relation to the little kitchen, particularly since Gob was being inadvertently helpful by running the water, and quietly wandered over to the drape. He had felt like pummelling the hell out of the bartender out of jealous reflex, seeing him latched onto Cort like a rotting limpet back in the saloon, but hadn't allowed himself the petty satisfaction of giving into the impulse, Cort's directive to stop notwithstanding. For one thing, he had implicit faith in Cort's loyalty to him; true, the damned bartender wanted her, it was beyond obvious, but he would get about as far as a two-legged dog if he tried anything. She wouldn't permit it.

For another, Charon hadn't really _wanted_ to beat the hell out of the other ghoul after thoroughly observing the terrorized state he was in, having had the time to do so in detail as he stood waiting for Cort's next order. Whatever Moriarty had been doing to Gob, it had clearly escalated past plain abuse since their last visit to Megaton and headed straight into pure torture. Charon had had enough of that in his lifetime, on both the giving and the receiving end, to not want to have anything to do with perpetuating it ever again, and especially not against another ghoul. If the Irishman hadn't already been dead, he would have immediately killed him just for reminding him of that; the things that had been done to him, and the things that Tenpenny had made him do.

Last but so irritatingly not least, and this had been driving him absolutely _nuts_ from the point he had realized it, he owed the quivering little lump a fucking favour; he fucking owed him _two _now, after the events of last night(he thought, not for the first time, that his girl seemed to have an unsurpassed talent for getting into the most absolutely insane kinds of messes, and the only thing that seemed to match that level of craziness was the fact that there always seemed to be someone completely unexpected there to haul her out when she got in over her head).

Except with Cort and a few select individuals, Charon was a hateful, antisocial misanthrope who found the idea of shooting or blowing people up more agreeable than talking to them(not that he would ever act on the impulse...well, he amended, not as long as they were _decent_ people, anyway), but he was also an honourable one. As such, he was going to repay Gob whether the little shit liked it or not, and right _now_. Charon inclined his head and spoke.

"Gob." There was a quiet, high-pitched '_yeep!_' from behind the blanket, which twitched spastically. Charon patiently waited as it fell still, then addressed the pair of now even wider eyes that reappeared at the top. "I owe you a favour."

"Y-you do?"

"Yes." Charon waited again as the eyes disappeared and through a period of silence, before they and the head they were located in popped out from around the side of the woolly barrier, now looking cautiously guarded.

"Ah, why?"

"Because Cort purchased my contract out of guilt brought on by not being able to liberate you when she wanted." Charon decided to omit his gratitude towards Gob for doing what was rightfully his job, not really wanting to bring attention to it, and focused entirely on the first reason he needed to make reparations for. It would also implicitly drive home the fact that she was his, thank you _very_ fucking much, and possibly have the added benefit of nettling the bartender.

"Excuse me?"

Gob still looking like a pistol trying to go off without the firing pin in place, Charon simplified his explanation. "Your ragged indentured ass is the reason I have her."

Feeling like his entire life was turning into one long physical and mental ass-kicking, Gob wondered if he shouldn't just help it along by curling up in a ball. He could kiss it goodbye and make everything more efficient for everyone else at the same time. "Oh. Good. That's just...super."

Charon allowed himself a few seconds to feel smug before getting back to the point. "What do you want from me."

Staring at the man looking down at him, asking himself why the hell couldn't he just stand up _straight_ for Chrissakes, hunching was making the height difference even _worse_, Gob had a horrifying moment where he thought he was going to spit out _'I'll take Cort, thanks'_, before scrambling for an answer that wouldn't get his head pinched off at the neck. "I-I dunno."

"Fine. Inform me when you make up your mind. Don't fucking make me wait forever, either, or I'll decide _for _you." Charon reached out and jerked the blanket closed again, then walked away, a shaky voice rasping out from behind it again when he was out of earshot.

"Oh, just...just...oh, _crap_."

* * *

_Re: recent review, in case anyone else noticed - Yes, I fudged some details in regards to Eddie and underaged ghoulification; call it an East Coast quirk if you want to. ;) There's going to be more, particularly when we get to the last third of the story, but nothing I hope that would be considered too major; the sky isn't going to turn purple and the seas pink or anything, but I will be getting creative, and I've been spattering clues for it around for a while, like everything else that pops up. Why? It's fun, keeps things from reading like a game guide, and it's going towards why I'm writing(see my profile). It'll all be plausible though, and if anyone has questions, I'm more than happy to explain the whys, as long as it doesn't involve spoilers._


	32. Show Me Yours so I Can Show Him Mine

_Thanks for the new reviews peeps!_

* * *

**Cort** spent another hour taking things out of herself and Nova before herding both her and Gob to the bedroom, whispering solicitously to both of them in private asides about how much she needed them to watch the other, it had been a long slog of absolutely _horrendous _experiences, and really, they were the _only_ person who could understand what the other was going through, and wasn't that an _awfully_ comfortable looking pair of beds, what with the clean blankets and all, and they should really get down to the business of sleeping, it being ludicrously late. Shutting the door before either one of them could protest what she had gently but inexorably browbeaten them into, she thumped down the stairs, told Wadsworth to pack it in for the night along with an admonition to be quiet the next morning, then finally headed straight back to where she had wanted to spend the entire evening.

"I am having a wash, and then we are having a sleep, I'm sorry it'll be on the couch..." Pulling herself out of Charon's arms to look at him, she trailed off, finally noticing the mess she had transferred to the front of his clothing, the big ghoul having ignored it completely as he usually did whenever she slopped something disgusting all over him. "Oh God, and so are you. Having a wash. Oh _God_, my butt's covered in Moriarty-juice. Eckeckeck!"

He shook his head, then moved to haul out clean sets of clothing as Cort scurried behind the drape and started stripping like her life depended on it, neatly hanging hers over the top when he had retrieved them as dirty ones landed in a messy heap. "I've slept on worse, Cort. I think I can manage." Charon inspected himself, slapped the dried blood from his arms and face after deciding that would be sufficient unto his tidy ends, and changed where he was standing after making sure the door upstairs was firmly shut, pushing his boots next to hers.

"I'm sorry about everything else, too."

"I've also gone through worse, Cort. I can manage this too."

Cort fell silent as she placed her head under the tap and scrubbed the clotted mess out of her hair, thinking about whether he meant worse things as a whole or just the things she had specifically put him through, ultimately deciding that for tonight at least, she didn't want to ask for clarification.

While Cort splashed around like a drunken Mirelurk, Charon thought about his own things; specifically what things he wanted to do with Cort, and the chances of him getting to do _any _of them. He hadn't yelled at her -well, very _much_-, hadn't thrown a fit over what happened in the saloon, been very conciliatory over the fact that he had been turned out of the room he was now permitted to share with her before even getting to sleep in it, let alone anything else, or beaten the hell out of Gob for any good or contrived reason he could come up with before he had decided he didn't want to, both of which he had several of. He hadn't gotten to beat the hell out of _anyone_, for fuck's sakes.

Considering that, Charon decided he had been patient long enough for one evening, and would really very much like for Cort to make him feel better, in such a way that would do the same for her. Pulling her back against him as she finally reemerged and headed for the couch, he brought a hand up to cup her breast as he bent down to slide his tongue behind her clipped ear, rasping into it a moment later and making her shiver. "I want you. It's been too long." He gave a short, surprised grunt as she awkwardly turned a hand back and poked him in the ribs.

"It hasn't even been two _days_."

He shook his head before pressing it against her shoulder, repeating himself. "Too long."

Cort reached up to stroke his patchy hair, biting her lip as she thought about it. "Nova and Gob are upstairs." Her face cleared into a smile a second later at how cross he sounded.

"I don't _care_, this whole day has been nothing but one massive shitstain. Let me, Cort, please. I need to-" He stopped and muffled a groan as she pressed back into him, rubbing against his hips and the growing stiffness between them.

"Need to what?"

"I need you to take me in." He didn't need to ask, not really, but he had learned how much she loved to be, and how much he wanted to hear the answer.

Cort tilted her head back to look up at him. "Always." She bit her lip again for a moment, thinking. She wanted him, did she ever, especially after all the crap they had gone through, but didn't want to end up waking either of the people upstairs, or to inadvertently flash one or both of them if she did. _That would kill the mood, look, Cort's full moon! With a soundtrack of me, shrieking like a ninny. I don't need to think about anything _else _getting killed today, I don't care _what _it is. I _need _this._ Puzzling at that, she decided to try something different, seeing as the only other option was leaving the house for some private ditch in the bush, and she definitely did not want to do that. _We can't do everything I wanted to, but just enough, maybe, I can maybe do just enough to make it nice for him._ "We'll need to be quiet."

"I can do that."

"Then sit down for me." Tugging at his belt buckle after he had sat on the couch, she grabbed one of his hands and shook her head as he instantly moved to pull off his shirt. "No, leave everything on, just in case." Cort grinned as he frowned, unbuckling his pants and straddling his lap. "Don't fuss, I have an idea. Now don't be too loud, and _stay. Still_."

"Oh for f-" He muffled a half frustrated, half eager groan, now knowing at least in part where this was heading, doing it again and tilting his head back obediently when Cort pushed lightly against his jaw. He closed his eyes as she started biting around his neck, gentle pressure and sharp nips mixed with wonderfully nerve-wracking swipes of her hot tongue. If he had been capable of it, Charon thought he might have lost control entirely when she slid a hand into his opened pants, pulling him free as she bit hard at the crook of his neck. She could keep this up for minutes or hours, all dependent on her mood or state of need; either way she would give no hints as to how long he would be driven crazy. For this particular evening, it didn't appear that it would be for very long, Cort fumbling at her own belt after a few moments, and as always, he didn't know whether to be relieved or regretful. He could never decide.

Rolling her clothing out of the way just enough to bare what she needed to, Cort shuffled back until she was hovering over his lap and slowly pushed herself down around him, moving a heartbeat at a time until his body met completely with hers, tilting her head back and sighing out his release as she settled. "Okay." Charon immediately wrapped his arms around her waist, one hand sliding under her shirt as he pulled her in even tighter, and she gasped, feeling him shift inside. "Oh, oh I want this to last until _forever_." Cort closed her eyes as he nuzzled behind her ear and started to move.

"I can do that, too."

It was amazingly, unbelievably erotic, fully clothed except for the one, vital spot, the hidden center of herself. Cort could feel every stitch in the cloth of her shirt, the rough weave of her pants, calloused pads of his fingers teasing her breasts, the only sounds her ragged breathing and the clinking noise his loose belt buckle was making as he quietly rocked her against him, time spooling out in a slow crawl. Feeling a rising ache that was almost painful, Cort reached around to grab the back of his neck with both hands as it sank into her belly and burst there, her mouth open in a silent cry. Noting a moment later that he hadn't gone with her like he normally did, she felt the euphoria ebbing out of herself. _It wasn't good enough for him. Oh, me_. "Charon? I'm sorr-"

"Shhh." Charon worked his other hand around, sliding it between her legs and rubbing, rough fingers teasing their way through the soft wet folds as he resumed moving himself inside of her at the same slow, languorous pace. He could feel it, where they were joined, hard rugged flesh enveloped by slick, smooth heat, and nearly lost himself in her, holding back with the same brutal control that he had used to keep himself in check when she had gone the first time. He held his other hand up to her mouth as he found and stroked the swollen nub he had been searching for, Cort instantly biting into the thick pad under his thumb to keep from crying out as he pushed her over the edge again. She nearly sobbed when he kept going, trying to do what she had asked him to, and he stopped, concerned that he was hurting her. "Cort?"

Cort swallowed, wanting to yell out and straining to keep her voice lowered as she begged. "More, oh _please_, I want more."

"Greedy." Reassured, Charon twisted her to the side and jerked her shirt and bra out of the way, bending his head down as soon as he had bared her chest, Cort biting back into his hand even harder as he drew one taut nipple into his mouth and sucked. He moved from one to the other, pulling back whenever she got too close, eventually driving her into a frenzy as he kept riding himself up into her, and this time she did sob as she came. He held still for a moment, waiting, and as soon as she had started to relax again, Charon rolled her over and kept going, Cort arching her back and digging her hands and teeth into the arm of the couch as he leaned back to watch himself slowly moving in and out of her body. Everything so far had been for her, was still for her, but he needed this for himself, to see it, to accept it as right. It was hard to see it as wrong, what with the noises she was making, and knowing she wanted it; knowing it meant she wanted _him_. He finally sped up as he felt her starting to spasm around him for the fourth time, his quiet, rapid panting mixing with her muffled squeals as he wrapped his arms around her and gave one last hard thrust, his hand running down to take her with him.

Hands clenched so hard in the thick fabric her fingers were screaming, Cort held her own cry back as Charon's hand cupped her again, her entire world narrowing to nothing but what he was doing to her, feeling like he was holding together as he pulled her apart. She let go of everything, letting his arms support her as she found one last exhausted flare of release.

Feeling her quiver faintly beneath him, Charon held her tightly and finally allowed himself to let go, shaking with the effort of remaining still as he spent himself within her, wanting to feel every part of it. His breathing slowing down as he finished, he kissed the right side of her neck, moving his lips over the lacy scars he had made there, one of the first things that had shown him she was different. "Cort. My beautiful Cort."

Twitching, feeling drugged and sleepy, Cort had almost felt like her heart was going to stop if he had sent her any higher, the strong, hammering beat of it now settling into a steady, comforting rhythm as he leaned back and cradled her. "Why did I show you where that was. I don't know if I can ever move again."

"So I could make it better for you." He gasped as she suddenly grabbed the hand she had bitten and licked up his palm, sucking on the ends of his fingers before finally letting it go. Nuzzling his face into her hair, he breathed in the sweet, musky scent of her. "You make me better."

"If I made you do all that, then I'm absolutely _amazing_." Cort smiled as a good-natured snort disturbed the hair on the top of her head. "See, you agree. _I _am number _one_."

"_You_ are number _stunned_. Come on, jackass. Let's get sorted and to sleep. You're brainless enough without staying up all night."

Cort smiled wider, both in pleased surprise at him having made a little joke, no matter how bad it may have been, and the fussy way he gathered her up, carrying her back over to the sink to clean up. _For right now, just now, there is nothing wrong and my life is perfect. _"Yes, mother hen."

They stayed like that for a while, exchanging quiet whispers and gentle touches as they took care of each other, Charon plucking her off of the ground again and bracing her against one hip to carry her back to their makeshift bed when they were finished. Deciding that the best way to arrange himself was whichever way Cort found herself the most comfortable in, the ghoul sat down and let her poke and prod him around until she was satisfied, which for her was when she decided that he was comfortable.

She sighed, wanting to sleep, knowing that she wouldn't stay that way when she finally did and had no way of preventing it. _No known way_, She amended to herself silently. _ You don't know how, not yet, but you have ideas. Good ones. _"Charon, don't...don't let me wake the others up when I do. I don't want them to know, so you _will_ keep me quiet, no matter what. And wake me up if either one of them needs anything, okay? I think it might take them a while to be all right again."

Charon pressed his lips to the side of her temple and nodded, deciding to not specifically obey anything past the firm first directive that he had to, not quite letting himself wonder when she would be all right again. He would keep her quiet regardless, since hiding the weakness was tactically in her benefit, but would be damned if he would wake her up just because the redhead or the frigging bartender needed hand-holding. _They can fucking do that for each other. _She _can sleep_. "Yes, Cort. I'll keep you quiet." He fell silent himself, watching her pensively trace her fingers over his arm and waiting for her to continue, the expression on her face clearly stating that sleep wasn't quite in the cards for her just yet.

"He dislocated Gob's arm. I should have come back sooner, right after we left the Citadel."

Charon shook his head. Discounting the damned knife that had ended up in her chest(and oh, didn't the idea of that make him want to rend something, _anything_ right the fuck apart, a hot feeling deep in the back of his skull), he thought their time of return had been the better one. He did not want to think about what might have happened if exhausted, malnourished Cort had attempted to do the same thing, the Cort who had still been the same deadly shot but had had trouble lifting her rifle to make it, and tightened his arms briefly. "Not your fault."

Cort shook her own head, repeating herself. "I should have come back _sooner._ One day later, and...I think it would have been too late. I almost was." She shuddered, realizing the macabre double meaning her words had, stopping when Charon cuddled her. Everything had been too close. "I won't go anywhere in town without Dogmeat again. _Or_ my pistol and repeater. I promise."

"Good." Gratified at the extension of his own earlier demand for her security, he offered what he hoped was a reassuring opinion on Gob's actions, having good cause to think that it was an accurate one. "Worked out better this way, him doing it. Better for him in the long run. Trust me."

"Always. Will you be comfortable enough like that?" Cort was a little less than, a lumpy spring on the couch digging into her back and Charon's belt buckle feeling like the world's smallest knife in the cheek of her ass, but then his hands were on her side and in her hair, the discomfort fading away as one large thumb rubbed behind her ruined ear.

Charon was decidedly a whole lot less than, he had a cramp in his thigh from one of Cort's knees digging into it and her damned Pip-Boy mashed into his gut, feeling like a tiny, tinny torture device, but then he felt a bloom of heat as she rested her head on his chest and sighed, her body a comfortingly heavy spark of warmth against him. "Like this? Always."

* * *

**Sitting** on the floor in the gloom, Nova sighed quietly and tucked her feet up, having eavesdropped on the entire exchange. Watching Cort and Charon had put a whole new spin on things, and she didn't feel quite so perverted for thinking about Gob as a potential bedmate anymore, or at least not quite so alone. She _did _feel madly curious, so instead of sleeping, she had curled up next to the door once Gob had fallen asleep, her ear pressed next to a bend in the metal that had lifted it away from the jamb. She had considered opening it and peeking out, but correctly guessed that either of the pair would pick up on the movement; both of them appeared to be strung so high she half-thought they would be able to tell she was doing _this_ much. She could hear everything anyway, the gap being of a decent size, and she could imagine what their faces were like, having seen the way they looked at each other earlier. For anything else, well. If someone was going to recognize the sounds of _that_, it would be her. There had been quite a lot to recognize, and it made Nova think even harder.

The kid was practically a damned saint, and if she was doing _that_ with the merc, why couldn't Nova herself do the same with Gob? From the way it had sounded, it was better than anything she had had in a long while. It sounded like love. It had also sounded like ghouls, or at least one of them, anyway, was a hell of a man in the sack. Now if she could just get past the sober case of the screaming meemies she was going through at the thought of having sex with a ghoul, she would be all set to do something about it. She was in the perfect position to, seeing as they were privately holed up with one another. Nova looked around the dim little room, stopping when she reached the huddled up form on one of the beds, wondering just how the hell she had gotten here in the first place, answering her own question a moment later. _Sugar, you know exactly how you got here. It was that dippy little cherry bomb downstairs, the answer to and for everything nuts._

Struck dumb by a combination of stress, exhaustion and a non-stop barrage of Cort's babbling, Nova wouldn't have protested even if the girl had stood there staring at them for a full minute before closing the door on them, and it had been pretty obvious that Gob wouldn't have balked at anything that she told or asked him to do, short of lighting himself on fire. Nova still wasn't quite sure how that had happened, being no stranger to manipulation herself. She wasn't exactly sure what actually _had_, couldn't decide if she had been wheedled or ordered or harped into this awkward and advantageous spot. It seemed the girl hadn't been doing anything aside from stating what was really just the obvious(which had not necessarily been what Nova herself had wanted to do), but somehow the longer she had listened and the longer she looked at the other woman, into those queer but now thankfully _warm _grey eyes, the more it seemed like everything Cort said was the most sensible thing to do. She had asked herself then what had just happened too, then started as Gob answered her, not realizing that she had asked the question out loud. _'Cort came back.' No kidding, sugar._

That hadn't been specifically what she had been asking, but she supposed it was the correct answer to all of it. Looking at the half-hopeful, half-cynical look on Gob's face, she had decided that it was the right time to give some answers herself, specifically for the deceptive and hurtful little dance she had done all over him, and laid it out as plain as she could stand to.

Gob hadn't done much of anything after she had finished. She hadn't specifically brought up crawling into bed with him, only told him why she had been suddenly cruel after being his friend for so long, apologized for not doing anything sooner and professed how much guilt she felt for not trying before, and, rather daringly, that she wanted to stay with him; not just at the saloon, but with_ him_, wherever he decided to go, and he had agreed, telling her he would sort things out in the morning. She supposed there might be talk about that, but then there was talk about her already. What was one more gossipy log on the fire, if she got something good out of it instead of getting burnt?

Gob hadn't brought up that shared night either, or anything else really, only stared at her briefly and then at his socked feet for a long time after they had finished talking, a somewhat thoughtful look on his face before he had rolled over into his blankets and conked out.

Still sitting on the floor with her rear going numb, Nova started toying with the idea of crawling into the same blankets and conking out right along with him. Her mind was split on the thought of doing more. She shook her head, moved to bite her nails, and then remembered she had already gnawed them raw. _Damnit. Well, you might have been a coward, sugar, but you've never been gutless. So suck it up, buttercup, and get in the damned bed. Just try sleeping with him first, the plain kind. Not _that _first. I want this to be different. He sure as hell is._

Pushing herself up oh so carefully and quietly, Nova creeped into the bed with Gob, shimmying herself under the covers and up next to him. It was easy enough, considering how he had hunched up against the wall, looking like he was trying to disappear into it. She was wondering what the best way to move him around would be, he was taking up just a bit too much of the width where parts of her needed to be wide, when he rolled over and draped an arm over her, responding to the warmth in his sleep.

_Eeep. Well, you're in it now, so get into it, girl. Just a little bit, one small secret little thing to start. You did fine with it last time, and maybe he'll... _Tilting her head up, Nova kissed him for the second time, waiting for his lips to move and keeping still when they did, shifting into that sweet, perfect little smile under her own. She pulled back after a long moment, looking at the shape of it in the dark until she started drifting, and shut her eyes. _I did it again. I'm the only one who's ever done that. I want to keep on doing it._

_

* * *

_

**Somewhere** around the same time Nova was settling in with Gob and the moon was settling itself down towards the horizon, dirty clouds scudding over the weathered slip of light, Cort cautiously edged herself off of Charon and slipped up the stairs on all fours, fingers tented and toes splayed out to keep from making any noise as she sought her own sort of cloud to pull over herself. After careful consultation with her Pip-Boy, four hypos of Med-X went into her thigh, and she nearly collapsed before she could crawl back down to the big ghoul, his reflexive embrace at her return the only thing keeping her from falling to the floor as her body went limp. Unable to stop herself, Cort weakly pressed her face into his chest and cried, staying silent and praying his shirt would dry before he would be awake to notice. _Please, oh please. Don't let me do this anymore, make them stop and let me sleep. Please God, let this work._

It didn't. It made it worse.


	33. Daydreams and Aftershocks

_Thanks for the new reviews, folks, and thanks to everyone for reading!_

_

* * *

_

**Unlike** a certain town sheriff, Gob woke up feeling significantly better, comfortably warm, and with a much clearer head. He was alive, didn't hurt, and now had his own business, if he wanted it. He was clean, with clean clothes and clean spares, white shirts _and _black shirts and cargos and jeans and even _socks_, actual honest to God whole _not_-holey _socks_. He had ate well, slept well, and had had a fairly nice and very vivid dream about the night when Nova had comforted him, which had possibly been the nicest thing of all, particularly after the little talk they had had. Gob snorted, still finding the whole thing rather unreal. If he wanted to talk about having dreamed anything, there was something.

He probably wouldn't have believed Nova if it hadn't been for Cort telling him what she had back in the saloon; Gob was a strong believer in once bitten, twice shy, considering the fact that he had been bitten so many times over the years that he had basically lost the same amount of metaphorical skin being a ghoul had taken off physically. But Cort _had_ told him, and he _had_ believed, had still desperately wanted to. He had known Nova for years, and had thought about being with her off and on for the same amount of time, as far as he would let his mind go(it couldn't go too far, too far meant daydreams turned into too much hope, and in his experience, too much hope always turned into so much molerat dung).

He had never said anything to her about that, hadn't dared, especially with the way he had to listen to everyone asking that fabulously hurtful question; had she ever taken _his _caps, did a freebie, had a little pity fuck with the shuffler? It seemed just about everyone had to ask her, every damned time they came in, meaning he had endless opportunity to listen to the same tired reply she always gave, the one he hated, the one he completely understood. No, she didn't take on johnnies squishier than her, she had standards, etcetera, soforth, same shit, different day, never going to get it out of your pants or even just get to hold her fucking hand you idiot, so stop wishing for either. He would have been happy with just that. Just holding her hand. Gob snorted again. _Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which fills up fastest._

And then...well, and then. That night. That crazy, despairing, stress-filled, somehow absolutely fantastic night. He supposed it might have been a side effect of being high, her willing to come into a bed with him, however platonically, but she had always been high lately, and she hadn't been while they were talking, Cort having seen to that, too. He had forgotten how pretty Nova's eyes were when they weren't glazed over with too many chems, and this time they stayed solidly on his, even when she had asked to stay with him, no matter what it was he decided to do. _There _was a punch to the head, if ever there was one.

After Nova had put his feelings about her into total disarray(disarray? She had set a frag mine off in his heart and head with _that_ little tête-à-tête), he had spent time sorting his feelings out about Cort, feeling the need to get that figured out before he did anything else, it being the less scary of two options at the time. Thinking about things before falling asleep, he had come to terms with the fact that she was more or less unobtainable, at least in the way he had been unrealistically and obsessively fantasizing about, but was still very much his friend. Gob shook his head, absently snuggling deeper under the covers and into the glorious pocket of warmth beneath them. _No, she's family, remember? So try not to foul that up for yourself like you have everything else Gobtholemew, having a...a _sister, _is nice._

Letting this new classification for her roll around in his sleepy, morning-fuzzy head, he decided he was happy with it; it felt more appropriate, especially after he had started thinking of her as a person again and not some larger than life saviour, a smaller one he needed to look after, and one did not think about doing _that_ with one's sibling. If he wanted to be all chronologically literal about it, she was young enough to be his damned _daughter_, even a granddaughter if he wanted to push the envelope, and why not, everything else had been shoved around for him lately, a Brahmin stomping through his mental china shop like everything was on sale and going out of style, all old patterns and silly assumptions must go. No, Cort as a sister was fine, more than, and whatever pigeonhole he put her into, what it all came down to in the end was that he could keep loving her, something he never wanted to stop doing. It was a constant, a good one, and he needed those.

Now, now he had to think about what he was going to be doing with his life. He actually _had _a life again now, thanks to Cort. He thought he wanted to try and make a run at keeping the saloon going before anything else. People were more or less used to him in Megaton, even if they weren't exactly friendly for the most part, and it would definitely be more friendly for Nova here than back in Underworld would be. He knew how to run the place, had been effectively doing it anyway, Moriarty usually wrapped up in his dirty machinations until the caps needed to be counted, and Gob liked to think that he wasn't stupid.

He had never been allowed near the accounts, but anything he needed to know about the financial side had been taught to him by Carol two decades beforehand, and _there _was a woman who had actually had some real competition, not just someone like the Stahl family buzzing in their ears. With all that under his belt, Gob decided that he could do it, do it well, and maybe even better. He could live up to the image Cort had given his adoptive mother, make an actual good life for himself, and with what Nova had told him, he thought there might eventually even be a slim chance in a few years that he would maybe be able to share it, really share it, to have someone-

He stopped and blinked, the smile that had been forming on his face falling off abruptly as he stared at the other bed. He had absently rolled his head around to look at it when he had started daydreaming about Nova, but while the bed was still there to be observed, she wasn't. This realization finally clued him into the reason of just why he felt so wonderfully cozy. Nova wasn't in her bed because she was in _his_ bed. Right in it. Under the covers. With him. She was asleep. They were touching. He had slept with her. _Oh sweet Jesus._ His remaining pallid skin flushing as much as it was able, Gob frantically tried to figure out just how to react to this new development. Screaming like a little girl sprang immediately to mind, but somehow he didn't think that would be quite the best response.

Waking her up seemed like a slightly better one, but what would happen if he did that? Something nice, or just something about her having a stupid nightmare and wanting company, Christ, would she think she was still _in _one if she woke up and saw him a foot from her face? She had freckles on hers. Right on her nose. He was close enough to count them. There were eight.

"Oh, _craaap_." Startled at the noise of his own voice, Gob widened his eyes and sucked his lips in, not having meant to say anything out loud. Rapidly deciding that that wasn't going to help him any if she woke up and saw him doing it, making a face on _his_ face was just insult to injury, he let them back out and tried to come up with something else, the minutes spooling out as he scrambled around his own mind like a panicked animal looking for a way out.

_Ooooh, I've got nothing, nada. Not a thing. _Gob amended that thought almost immediately, finding something else to latch onto until he could make his brain work in a Nova-related direction without imploding. _No, I've got a saloon. One I need to clean out and get working in. Oh Jesus, how am I going to clean up that shithole by myself, I don't want to go back there and I don't want Nova or Cort to do it, I wouldn't give that stinkin' job to someone I hate...waitaminnut._ Here was a solution to both his problems, or more accurately, a solution to one giant, angry asshole one and a distraction from one small, soft, smooth, eight freckles, he bet she had more on her shoulders and maybe she would let him count- _OhsweetjumpingJesusChrist!_

Carefully inching out of the bed before he could get caught up in another manic loop of his own thoughts, Gob sat on the floor and quietly put his sneakers on, standing up to look down at Nova when he was finished, not wanting to leave without doing at least something before he snuck out. It would feel too much like running away, and he was tired of that. He wasn't going to kiss her, even as nice as it had been to dream about that last night; _after _last night kissing girls without their express permission was now filed strictly in his majorly bad idea list and underlined. Twice. Waking her up and asking to do that didn't seem too hot either.

Maybe something else though, just a little something. He thought stuff that she had done for him should be safe enough; if she didn't mind giving, maybe she wouldn't mind receiving, and she wouldn't know either way. Bending over, Gob tucked the rumpled blankets back around her, a much neater effort than Nova's panicked last-second fling the night she had stayed with him, and brushed the equally rumpled hair off of her forehead. He nearly had a heart attack when she suddenly smiled, a slow, sleepy arc emerging like a soft sunbeam when his fingertips brushed over her scalp. Backing up against the door, he nervously waited for her to open her eyes and start yelling at him, slowly relaxing when she didn't, the happy look on her face folding back into the neutrality of sleep at the same time.

_I-I did that. I think I want to do that again. _On that thought, Gob slipped quietly out the door and headed down the stairs, not wanting to risk taking it any farther and ruining anything.

* * *

**Both** Cort and Charon were still conked out on the couch, which didn't surprise him. Gob knew it was early morning for the plain fact that he _always_ woke up then, regardless of whenever he had managed to fall asleep, just one more thing he had gotten out of working for Moriarty along with two for flinching. The big ghoul was dozing lightly enough to immediately pop his eyes open at the sound of feet moving towards them, and the girl was snoring and drooling into his shirt, oblivious to absolutely everything. Gob cautiously edged in front of them, trying to keep his voice low and the damned stammer out of it.

"I know how you can pay me back."

Charon said nothing, just stared impassively up at him and waited, his arms wrapped around Cort.

"I need to clean the bar out. It's a mess from where I ah. What's left of that sonofabitch is stuck to the floor, and the walls, and oh, sweet _Jesus_." Gob jammed his hands in his pockets to keep them from going after something to polish. "I don't think I can handle that on my own yet, and I can't wait around till whenever that is, he'll start to rot, there's the storms coming, and I need to get the saloon running again. And I don't want to ask Cort or Nova to help. Not with that, so. That's what I want from you."

"Fine." Charon carefully disentangled himself from Cort, gently lifting her up and pulling his legs out from under hers. Laying her back down, he stared at her thoughtfully as he put his boots on and laced them up, debating with himself. He had spent a protracted length of time thinking after she had finally nodded off for the second time, replaying the events of the previous evening and the ones back in Rivet City over and over again in his mind, formulating a plan and trying to decide when the perfect time to execute it might be; a difficult task considering it would involve separating himself from Cort, without her having the knowledge of why he was doing it. _Right now would be perfect for it, with him to increase the draw. She's exhausted, and won't wake up for hours. Fucking nightmares need to stop. Why can't I _fucking _fix-_ Cutting the unwanted thought off, telling himself there was nothing _to_ fix, she was _fine_, he gave his head a sharp little shake, and decided to do something that he knew he would be successful at.

What Charon wanted to do was perform a little reconnaissance mission.

He had been ready to pull the entire town down around his ears last night, seeing a full-scale slaughter as the only way to get an unarmed, unarmoured Cort and the fucking bartender out of it, knowing she wouldn't leave him behind if the shit hit the fan. He had decided he would have to hit the townsfolk, hit them _hard_, leaving them confused, dead and whichever were still capable of it extremely averse to the idea of pursuit.

Cromwell's timely interference had solved the immediate problem of Simms' attempt to unhome her(the big merc considered that this might possibly be another favour he had accrued, but had made up his mind that neither he or Cort would be repaying it, figuring that he was doing the annoying fuck a favour just by _being_ here, and as such dismissed him without another thought), but would do nothing for the biggest part of it. The biggest part, something he had decided to take care of before Cort could be burdened with it, were all the other perfectly normal, perfectly prejudiced fucksticks inhabiting the place, which had been Harkness' exact and understandable reason for banning her from the carrier.

Charon no longer thought that there was anything wrong with what he was doing with Cort, what he _was _to Cort, couldn't, with the way it made him feel and the unending approval she gave; but he also still didn't see anything wrong with the way most people reacted to him doing it, a blind spot made out of self-hate that she had been as yet unable to remove. Knowing what her thoughts on the matter would be, he had refrained from mentioning anything about it then, and it was prompting his subterfuge now. Telling her he wanted her to stay inside while he used himself and Gob as bait to check and see if anyone would attempt to disparage or attack them would have only made her aggressive and provoked her into doing the exact opposite(he didn't expect her righteous indignation at that sort of thing to ever stop at this point, and it tended to make things fucking inconvenient whenever they happened to win the asshole lottery).

With Cort asleep and insensible, he could suss out the mood of the townspeople without her being there to bear the brunt of it, without her there to go ballistic at any slights or unfavourable looks or slurs if they were given, and make them even worse. Anyone wilfully stupid enough to attack someone like him, in any way, generally wasn't smart enough to back down, not from what would appear to be a much smaller, easier target. Anyone attacking him now could be taken care of immediately, and without her having to immediately know about it, as well as having the added bonus of possibly intimidating any other potential aggressors. They had seemingly gotten lucky, _very_ lucky at exactly the point where they most needed to be, and the very last thing Cort needed to do right now was to blow it with her sensitivity or temper. He couldn't allow her safety or stability to be compromised any further, by anyone, especially not with her unique nightly requirements. Deciding it was the correct action, Charon acted.

"Robot." He let out an irritated noise when nothing happened, and tried again. "_Wads_worth." The correct title applied, the mechanical butler puttered instantly upright, his chummy voice modulated into a tinny whisper.

"Good morning Sir! How may I be of assistance today?"

"I'm going out. Protect the girl." He thought for a moment, and then added to the directive. "_Both _of them."

"Of course, Sir! Madam has already instructed me on her favoured method of dealing with intruders. You may count on me!"

Grudgingly satisfied as the robot raised his armed arms, one with a flame-thrower and the other with a buzzsaw, Charon turned back to what he was briefly entrusting to it and gave her a gentle poke. "Cort. _Cort_."

Cort let out a slightly louder snore that sounded like speech, if the person trying to produce it was under water with a mouthful of rocks. "_Hnk_'hff."

Gob nearly jumped out of his skin as Charon chuckled in response, never having heard or ever expecting to hear the noise coming out of the person it had. Considering he thought it had sounded like a rusty door hinge to some dark gate in Hell, he thought he would be happy if he never did again. "What?"

"She just told me to fuck off." He reached out and gave her another poke, this one somewhat harder than the first. "_Cort_."

Gob snatched a quick look at the big merc, who was still giving Cort the same softly amused one. "Can't you just leave her? She looks so tired. She looks _way_ too tired." Gob thought she was more than tired; he thought she was positively thrashed, and now had a clear enough head to recall she had looked that way when he had laid eyes on her again the night before. If anything, she looked even worse now, smudged dark circles under her eyes and her skin so pale she was almost blue. For the first time, he started to wonder just how accurate Three Dog's reports actually were, and what had really happened back in D.C. Considering who was crouched next to him, they obviously weren't complete.

Charon's face hardened instantly, not happy at the reminder of Cort's problem and his continuing failure after having so recently pushed it out of his head. Last night had been unusually horrendous, and he had had to pin her down with a hand over her mouth to keep her from shrieking in terror, something she hadn't done since their last night in the Citadel. He didn't think it had helped, and he had absolutely _hated_ doing it, feeling her struggling to get away from him for what seemed like forever, until the panic fell away and she finally recognized him. "I am well aware of how she looks, Gob, and no, I _cannot _'just leave her'. If she wakes up and can't find me, she'll go fucking batshit." He returned his attention to the snoring lump that was currently passing for the center of his universe and gave her a few light shakes, which did nothing aside from turning the low wheezing she was making into something resembling grunty hiccups. Rubbing a hand over the back of his neck as she resumed her slow, nasal march, he sighed and finally fell back on something that always worked. "Ah, fuckit. SQUIRRELS!"

Charon jerked his head back in time to keep Cort's from crashing into it as she suddenly sat upright, looking like an exhausted, paranoid rooster. "WHERE?"

Gob blinked. "_Squirrels_?"

"I have no fucking clue."

"Iguanas? With'm?"

Charon watched as Cort slumped before the words were entirely out of her mouth, her eyes drunkenly flicking to the corners of the room in search of the lizards, the momentary wave of alertness being slowly swallowed up by an ocean of fatigue. With the terrible way she had been sleeping, if she didn't wake up on her own, it was next to impossible to get her moving. Getting her fully conscious usually took a whole quarter of an hour, unless something was shooting at them, and Charon normally just let her be unless he had been left with instructions to the contrary.

Gob leaned forward to peer at her as she drooped even further, Charon's nudging the only thing still keeping her upright. "Is she even awake?"

"Not really, which is good. If she doesn't wake up all the way before going back to sleep, she won't have...she'll mind me better. _Cort_."

"Charon?" Focusing in on him at the sound of her name, she smiled.

Charon smiled back, straightening her mussed hair and feeling somewhat better. _She's always fine in the morning, see? Fine. _"I'm going to go help Gob clean out the saloon. You can go back to sleep. You will remember where I am when you wake up, and not flip the fuck out. Tell me okay, Cort."

"M'kay. Lff'you."

"I love you too." One eye already closed and the other rapidly following along, Cort leaned forward and gave him a slow, sleepy kiss before tipping back over, Charon darting a hand out at the last second to keep her head from touching down like a sack of rocks. Giving her hair a final pet, he straightened up and turned to Gob, who surprisingly looked wistful instead of ill for once. Observing him, Charon scrunched his brows the merest of tics inwards. _Interesting_. "What about your girl."

"My...?" Gob raised his eyebrows in question, having been distracted from what he was thinking about by what he _had _been thinking about.

"The redhead, moron."

Gob smiled a sweet, goofy smile. "Oh. She's still asleep, if nobody bothers her she'll probably stay like that for most of the...wait, she's not mine!"

"_Sure_ she's not." Fishing the spare key Cort had given him out of a pocket, Charon hesitated while Gob sputtered, taking one last hard look around as he picked up his shotgun and leaned Cort's repeater in easy reaching distance against the arm of the couch. The robot had stationed himself by the door, playing quietly with one of the snarls of wire they had brought back, and he decided it would be sufficient to guard Cort for the few moments it would take to get to the saloon and send the mutt back home. On the extremely unlikely chance that Cort forgot what she had been told, he would be waiting outside the door for her to remind her if she needed it, and would bring her directly to him either way. "Alright, we can go."

* * *

**There** was no one lying in wait outside the door, which didn't surprise Charon. For one thing, it seemed too direct a response for the townsfolk to take. He knew from his experience working for various traders that most attacks in a setting like this would initially be cowardly, the aggressors throwing not much more than unimaginative insults and small, improvised missiles until they gained confidence. For another, he didn't see it as something that Simms would stand for. Charon more or less held the same personal opinion that Cort did in regards to the man's professional performance; the sheriff _was_ good at his job. It was obvious, looking around at the clean, quiet and, most importantly, _safe_ town(children playing on the far side of the crater, unarmed women walking around unmolested the two most obvious signs), and he had probably already thought about the possibilities of someone trying to ambush them when they finally emerged.

Stepping through the threshold and locking the door behind them, Charon let his eyes unfocus as he kept the man in mind and turned towards the town, his gaze instantly fixating on where he stood across the bowl after only half a second. Simms was in a fairly decent vantage point up in front of Craterside Supply, and looking straight back. Giving a short, approving grunt at seeing the other man tending to his responsibilities to them after what had been a night filled with reasons not to, he moved forward, meandering towards the saloon in a somewhat zig-zagging course to give anyone interested in taking a shot ample opportunity and observing things as he went.

Gob trailed behind with his hands back in his pockets but with a somewhat straighter back, drawing a small bit of confidence from watching the self-assured, indifferent way the bigger ghoul was walking through the town, moving as if he owned it, heedless of the fact that he was being used by him as one half of a slowly moving target. He was also oblivious to the Atomites hovering around the periphery of the crater like batty white birds, all of them stringently following Cort's direction to leave them alone(seeing Charon in broad daylight standing at his full height might have also had something to do with it, none of them wanting to become the first Martyr of Megaton, devotion to their faith notwithstanding).

They were also running interference for the ghouls, something Charon had picked up on almost instantly, seeing a pair of the zealots intercepting a Wastelander that had seemed to be bent on intercepting them in a decidedly unfriendly manner. _All_ of them were arrayed in pairs, and stationed in strategic locations around the town. It was a surprisingly well-organized and completely unexpected maneuver, and Charon wondered if it was being performed in conjunction with the sheriff or independently. He wouldn't have immediately thought of Cromwell as being capable of something like that, the man seemingly a few cartridges short of a full magazine, but then he had been surprised by his convenient little act of extortion the night before.

Deciding that it ultimately didn't matter and rather gratified that he should have so much unexpected assistance for Cort's security(not that he _needed_ it, thank you very fucking much), Charon increased his speed towards the saloon, wanting to get the degrading task Gob required of him over with and back to his own life. They had nearly reached their destination when the sound of rapid feet suddenly came up from behind, feet that no one was stopping. _Ah, fuck. Jackpot. _Reaching back, he put his hand on the stock of his shotgun, ready for everything to go to hell.


	34. Imperfect Mirrors

_There's backstory for this first bit, if anyone is wondering, and it is written, I just haven't edited it yet. It'll get posted as a little oneshot when it's finished, probably in the next few weeks. I'm beta-ing something(I haven't forgotten, someone!) and I'm also busy like a bee with various RL things nobody else gives a crap about. ;) But basically what I'm saying is I'm back to the once a week posting, otherwise I'll fitz out like an overloaded wall socket. I did the math, and I've written 100 chapters in about 28 weeks, an average of three and a half chapters per week. I don't know how I'm not drooling down my shirt already. As always, thanks for the new reviews and the faves!  
_

_

* * *

_

**Charon** whirled, stopping his hands from pulling his shotgun loose at the last second as the expected ambush turned into a miniature assault on Gob, then stood there staring at the odd pair with his head tilted, one eyebrow raised in question. The little girl he had met on his first visit to Megaton had crashed into the other ghoul like a tiny, pig-tailed freight train.

"Gob, you're outside!"

Still a little off-kilter, Gob couldn't do much aside from stupidly agreeing to his own whereabouts as Maggie Creel latched even tighter onto his waist and smiled up at him. "Maggie, I'm outside."

"Billy said you were sick, are you better now? Did the lady with the dog fix you? I can't remember her name which is stupid since I can remember the dog's and he said, Billy not the dog I mean, he said _he_ was finally gone because she came back and I could talk to you again instead of him just visiting for me but the saloon was locked but I knew if I waited, I'm good at that, and now you're here!"

Gob blinked a few times as her machine-gun chatter sank in and his brain worked on making sense of the words. Billy Creel had been in the saloon on a regular basis, he always was, ever since he and his adopted daughter had moved into the town, but Gob thought he hadn't noticed what was going on, one way or the other. He certainly hadn't reacted to the increasing damage that had been laid out on him like Moira had. Apparently he had noticed enough to know Moriarty would eventually kill him, and to set up an excuse to explain it to Maggie. Apparently Billy Creel had been doing a lot more in the bar aside from sucking back Nuka Cola in the two years since Gob had last spoken to his kid, something he remembered with a sad fondness. "Yes Maggie, Cort came back and now I'm all better. I ah, need to go do some stuff with Charon, here, so I'll see you later, okay?"

"Okay!" Being a sweet child by nature and having hugged one friend, Maggie decided to be polite and give the same attention to what she thought was undoubtedly a new one, having naively interpreted Charon's brusque behaviour the last time she had seen him as shyness. _Cort_ was nice, so in Maggie's pragmatic, childish reasoning, anyone she lived with must be as well.

Gob clamped his lips together and looked sideways to keep from laughing like a loon at the panicked look that broke out on Charon's face as the little girl suddenly attached herself to one of his long legs, hugging it tightly before skipping away with a chirpy goodbye. The big merc opened his mouth as he watched her go, croaking out something that wasn't quite a question. "What."

Unable to stand it any longer, Gob clapped a hand over his mouth and fizzed, the hilarity of the moment banishing any fear he might have at what the consequences of giving into it might be. He could take a shot to the head or whatever for finding something to laugh about, not having had much of a reason to for a very, very long time.

Charon replied to the strangled noises he was making with a withering look and walked into the saloon once Gob had calmed down enough to open the door, shifting the testy expression into something that might have been affection as Dogmeat sat up in front of him and grinned. "Good mutt. Now go guard her." Dogmeat whuffed and took off out the door, loping back towards the house as Gob entered the foul-smelling room and looked around, waving a hand in front of his non-existent nose.

"Ugh, it _reeks_ in here. It wasn't this bad last night."

"He's had time to stew."

"Oh, _thanks _for that."

"You're welcome."

"Seriously though, what the hell is that _smell_?" Gob could see the jokey irony in this question, considering he was one ghoul standing next to another ghoul(_And we just walked into a bar, _he thought, _Rimshot please_), so he wasn't sure how he was picking up anything else under the raw meat and dried vomit stench of the dead man, but there it was, pungent and acidic, something he couldn't place. Charon seemed to know immediately what he was referring to.

"Dog piss. He likes to do that to anything that ticks him off completely. Since Cort hated fuckface over there, he more than fits the bill."

"Oh, just super. Well, not crazy about _that_ addition but I can't say I'm displeased with the sentiment. What does he do when he's just a little annoyed?"

"Eats them." Moving around the bar as Gob glanced back out the door with a somewhat impressed expression before closing it, Charon looked down at the corpse behind it with studious, clinical interest accompanied by a rising feeling of somewhat grudging respect for the bartender, the mess of it being rather notable even by his standards. He glanced up as Gob finally trailed around to where he was standing, then rolled his eyes as the other man started stammering again.

"I-I know, it's terrible, that I, that, ah. Did."

Charon bent and grabbed the shoulders beneath the mutilated head, twisting his fingers in the sodden vest and shirt over them when his hands threatened to slip off. "What, that you finally found your sack? Stop being a whiny little shit and get his feet, there's a lot to do in here. We'll put him next to the door, take him out with the rest of the trash when we're done with everything."

Gob replied in a low voice, grabbing for Moriarty's ankles as he looked over to Charon, still feeling like a coward. It had taken losing the last thing he thought he had to finally spur him into doing something, only acting at all because he had thought he had nothing else left to live for. "I didn't find _anything_. I did this because I thought he had killed Cort." The rising, familiar feeling of worthlessness that was edging around the corners of himself was suddenly chased away by startled confusion, seeing the look the other ghoul shot him. It wasn't contempt or thinly-veiled impatience this time(not that he took either one particularly personally, used to everyone looking at him like that and his vague memories of Charon were of the big man looking like that at everyone regardless); it was something that was almost a complete polar opposite. After a drought of long, thankless years, Gob found someone, the last person he would ever have expected to, looking at and speaking to him with gratitude and approval.

"Well, _good_. That's good." Charon turned back to the clotted mess on the floor, waiting for him to lift the other end of the corpse. When Gob remained in place, he looked up again, exasperated. "_What_?"

"You're just-" Gob cut himself off in time to keep from telling Charon that he was almost just like a real person now, correctly guessing that that particular comment would not fly over well, at all, and finished his statement rather weakly. "Really different." It was apparently still the wrong thing to say, Charon's face instantly reverting to the same morose expression it normally held as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

"No, I am _not_. I'm just not nailed to a fucking _wall_. Now are you going to help clean up the mess you made, or am I supposed to do all of it?"

Pulling up on the cold, dead weight and trying not to feel too nauseated by it, Gob found himself reevaluating his opinion of Charon even further, finding that he wasn't quite sure if he liked where it was now heading. He was still an insufferable asshole, but he was starting to come to the conclusion that he might be also be an _all right_ asshole. He also found himself feeling guilty in two directions for what he had done to Cort, although this new trip was overlaid with irritation instead of distress._ I'm feeling guilty to the guy who's got the girl of my recently deceased dreams. Oh that's just _super_. Do it, just get it over with, at least if you feel like shit afterwards it'll be because of someone else and not yourself. Everyone else makes you feel like crap, you don't need to help it along. Do it, do it, doitdoitdoit_. They had made it halfway to the door before Gob finally just spat it out. "I kissed Cort last night."

Charon instantly dropped his half of the corpse and stood up, crossing his arms as Gob was jerked forward by the sudden increase in load, nearly sending him ass over kettle and onto his boots. "...Why." He knew perfectly well why, you would have to be blind and brainless _not_ to know, but asking questions would keep him from immediately popping off the smaller man's head like a wine cork, and he was genuinely curious at why Gob would risk that. There was also the fact that Cort would most likely be inordinately pissed with him if he did. And why the _hell _wasn't _she_ the one telling him about this shit?

"Honestly? Because I wanted to. I thought she was dead, and then suddenly she wasn't, and she was _there_...look, I wasn't exactly in the best frame of mind at the time." He fell quiet, not wanting to potentially dig himself in any deeper, and just stood nervously watching Charon as he stood thoughtfully watching him back. After what seemed an interminably long moment to Gob, he spoke up again.

"Are you suicidal?"

"Ah, I don't think so."

"You're definitely an idiot."

"I'm not gonna argue that one."

"And what did she do in response to that."

_Oh let's see, she orally bitch-slapped me, bawled like a little girl, then let me cuddle her till she felt better, _then _told me not to worry about blowing a hole out her back. Oh, craaap. _ Gob scrambled, trying to keep it as close to the truth without getting himself killed by it. "E-everything short of punching my lights out, including making me feel like the worst person on Earth, then she told me I had to, ah. T-tell you what I did."

Sparing a moment to look incredibly smug, Charon tilted his head, parsed this new batch of information, and then grunted, reaching a conclusion. "I understand."

"You _what_?"

"I understand. Do it again and I'll shove a grenade so far up your ass your chest will explode." Charon held one large hand up in a fist and then flicked his fingers out in demonstration. "Boom, Gob."

"I don't _want_ to do that again, trust me. You-you're not going to do anything to me now?"

"No, Cort took care of it herself." She had also steered Gob towards him, something which was practically a billboard instructing him not to injure the bartender. She wanted him to be aware of it, and the fact she had taken care of it. If she had managed to get the quivering heap to do _this_, whatever punishment she had decided to levy against the unwanted contact had obviously been adequately intimidating. The man had probably given himself a wonderful mental beating working himself up to admit to what he had done, had been beaten enough physically to last a lifetime, and Charon really _did _understand. _I probably would have done the same..._ He stopped himself, unable to carry out such a bald-faced and shameful lie in his head, as much as he wanted to. He hadn't known Cort like Gob had, and wouldn't have put in the effort to try in the first place, even if he had been able. _No, I wouldn't have done that. I would have killed her outright, standing orders from that rotten bastard for anyone who attacked him. A round in the back or head, then another to make sure she was dead before she hit the floor. I would have been happy about it._ _I would have spat on her corpse when he made me clean it up, pissed at the mess. _Feeling suddenly and completely unsettled to a sickening degree, he snapped at Gob, who was still looking at him oddly. "_Why_, do you want me to? I'm more than willing to oblige, _right _now."

"Not particularly."

"Then shut the hell up and help me move this asshole. Where the fuck outside do we put this fuck, anyway?" He paused, slumping slightly as he belatedly realized something and perversely thankful for the distraction. "That kid is outside. There's probably going to be screaming if we go out with it like this. I don't need to be fucking screamed at, Gob, not when I can't shoot whatever's doing it."

"Oh, Jesus. Ah, I'll get a blanket." Gob looked at the amount of various bodily fluids dribbling sluggishly from the corpse and winced. "_Several_ blankets. We can go dump him in a ditch somewhere, whatever's closest and out of sight, screw doing anything fancy." _That's what he wanted to do to us. Here's my fucking charity, Colin. I hope you choke on it like your busted teeth._

Charon gave a dry, half-amused snort as they dropped the body next to the door. "Anthill?"

"I _wish_, but who knows where that thing is, I never heard anyone mention it and it's not like I got out to explore much." Gob stopped and looked up at him, startled. "I-I haven't gone outside the town since I got here."

"It's still the exact same craphole world. Now come on, there's a lot of shit left to do."

After retrieving a few ratty bedsheets and winding the body up, Gob stalled again, looking around. "I don't even know where to start next."

Charon sighed heavily, then started calmly rattling out a list of instructions, ticking them off on one hand as he went. "Open the fucking windows and doors, get some buckets and a shitload of Abraxo for the floors, box of Washo and a tub for the linens upstairs. You should know how to clean this place just as well as I do, unless you spent that fifteen years of cowering like a little shit with your head up your ass. I'll start stacking chairs."

Gob found himself feeling a surge of real fury again, this particular barb hitting him close enough to sink in and catch. He had spent a large percentage of those years cowering, it was true, but nearly every waking moment had also been consumed by his scrubbing down everything over and over to the point that it was a nervous habit he could barely control at times, one he was fighting against now. _I will not grab a glass, Gobtholemew you will _not_, you do not need it. Fucking muscle-brained asshole_. "What the hell would you know about it, anyway. It's not like you've ever had to sink down to doing anything like this before." He retreated back against the bar as Charon suddenly rounded on him, hands clenched into fists and snarling.

"Oh, _fuck_ you! Ahzrukhal didn't just use me to knock heads together and decorate that shitting corner like a fucking second-rate museum piece. You have no idea what I've had to do, no fucking _clue_ of how lucky you are I said yes to this when you asked, instead of _just_..." He trailed off and sighed again, shaking his head and looking back out over the room as he willed his fingers to straighten back out, firmly shutting away another set of bad memories. They had been dragged to the surface bit by bit over the last twelve hours, first by Nova's remonstrations, then by the familiar, pungent scent of the saloon, ghoul-stink, death, and old stale liquor, and now by Gob's griping. "Just get the fucking buckets, Gob. I want to get this finished and go home."

"Look, I'm sorr-"

Charon snapped back without turning, just started flipping the mismatched stools and chairs upside down as he came to them, setting them neatly on the tables. "Go to hell. I don't require pity from _you_."

Being intimately aware of where this particular patch of anger was coming from, Gob didn't take it personally this time, only went to retrieve the items they would need, quietly filling buckets and grabbing up all the rags he could find as Charon continued putting up furniture around the saloon. He still said nothing as they started cleaning, only watched the big merc as he efficiently and silently cleaned everything within the scope of his long reach, the trail of finished surfaces behind him so spotless it looked like a Mister Handy had gone berserk on them. The drastically changed appearance around him matched the one he had of Charon in his own head, and Gob wondered if it wasn't so much that he seemed like a real person but that now he was actually thinking of the other ghoul as one._ More thinking, less speaking. Good idea Gob, wish you had had it_.

They spent hours tearing the saloon apart, and after everything had been cleaned out, they ventured outside of the town, Charon with Moriarty slung over a shoulder, and Gob with sacks of refuse. The smaller man derailed yet again as they stepped through the outer gates when Stockholm triggered them, and he wondered if he would ever reach the point where things weren't knocking the mental stuffing out of him. The Wasteland was spread out like a sun-bleached painting, everything stark in the noon sun, heat shimmers rippling in the distance under a sky so pale it was nearly white. "Oh crap, it's big. _Everything's_ big. I forgot." He was brought out of his awestruck reverie by an impatient sigh.

"Where, Gob. I'd like to set this shithead down before he leaks on me."

Gob looked around, feeling suddenly nervous at being so exposed, then slowly forced the feeling away. They were staying near the town, and he had one hell of a slaver deterrent for this little adventure. "Ah, down here, we'll just go past the gully, there. I know you can't see the town from there. I remember that."

Charon followed him down the slope and through the rocky passage, dumping the corpse off when Gob shook out the garbage next to a discarded pile of old pre-war oddments. He had turned and taken a handful of steps back the way they had come when he noticed the bartender wasn't following, and was instead looking down at the bundled corpse with a blank look on his face. Suppressing another irritated sigh, he walked back, Gob starting to talk again when he reached him.

"He bought me out here, right at the end of this." He pointed to a worn path a small distance away that joined up with the one leading to the town. "Right there. I don't know if it was on purpose or just some stupid whim. I thought he was nice at first, that he really meant that whole 'work to pay him off' bullshit. He asked what I could do, and I told him what Carol taught me. He said that was excellent, and boy, oh _boyo_, could he could use me. Wasn't _that _the fucking understatement of the century." He laughed, a high, breathy wheezing that made Charon snap his head around to stare at him. "Know what I was worth?"

Charon returned to staring out over the desert, his own face going blank. "No. Tell me."

"Six bottles of watered down scotch and four hundred caps. I was less expensive than a Chinese assault rifle he was looking at. It was in better condition, I guess." Gob bent over and wrapped his hands around the back of his neck, starting to rock from foot to foot. Fixated on the memories of when he had been bought by Moriarty so much he was nearly drowning in them, he missed the startled jerk Charon gave at seeing the motions. "You fucking sonofabitch, try telling me _now_ that I haven't worked off _six_ bottles of _shit_ liquor and four hundred _stinking_ bottlecaps in _FIFTEEN MOTHERFUCKING YEARS_! TELL ME WHAT I'M WORTH _NOW_!" Gob traded screaming for a strangled yelp and hit the dirt as a gunshot abruptly boomed out from beside him, moving both arms tightly up over his head as five more followed in rapid succession, sounding like a thunderstorm jacked up to breakneck speed. Slowly getting back up as the echoes from the shattering, percussive noise faded away, he looked from the smear of gore and shredded cloth that was now all that was left of Moriarty's body to Charon's retreating back, the big ghoul carrying his shotgun on one shoulder and his voice rasping over the other.

"There's the return on your six bottles. The key he's wearing probably leads to more than four hundred caps. Now move your fucking ass. I have had more than enough of your damned company, and I need to get back to Cort."

Gob rubbed a hand over his face, wishing he was back with Nova. "Key?" He looked back into the pile of human sludge and finally spotted it hanging off of what was left of a collarbone, snatching it up without hesitation and scrubbing it and his hands free of blood in the dirt before running to catch up with the other ghoul. He would bet those damned six bottles that it went to Moriarty's filing cabinet, and there was definitely a hell of a lot more in there than the amount he had been bought for. _Screw you, you sonofabitch. _I _win. I beat you._

He caught up with Charon at the gate at the same instant that Cort suddenly tore out of it with Dogmeat, her back laden with two packs and her arms full of armour. Charon took one look at her panicked face and swore under his breath, jogging up to meet her. "Fuck, what now."

"Charon, we have to go back to the Vault, right now!" Cort gave a heaving shrug, spilling his pack and armour at his feet, and he started strapping the latter on before she could finish telling him to. "Come on, here's your stuff, get loaded for bear." She flicked her hand out, tossing another key to Gob, who fumbled and caught it. "That's the key to the house, you and Nova can use it as long as you need to, I don't know how long we'll be gone. Maybe a week, tops."

Having only entered one Vault with her, Charon assumed that was their destination and shook his head slowly, calculating the journey out in his head with the new obstacles they would have to face as well as dealing with the impending storms, wondering why the hell she would want to drag them back there. They had no way of knowing where the Enclave outposts and patrols were located along the way, available shelter would be choked with other inhabitants because of the inclement weather, human and otherwise, all of this meaning they would have to go slower than their first sojourn to the out of the way location. Passing on this needed information, he tried to think of a way to talk her into delaying it, not feeling optimistic about his chances with the way she was frantically shoving bits of armour at him. "Cort, it's going to take significantly longer than a week to get to 112 and back. We shouldn't even be trying right now."

She shook her head violently back and bent to snatch up his hip plating, whipping it around him so hard he grunted, fingers flying over the buckles and eyes wild as she looked up to him. "No, no not 112, _my_ Vault, 101! Charon, I need to go _home_!"

* * *

**Cort** had rolled out of bed(or more specifically, fallen right off the couch) when a quiet, intermittent beeping from her Pip-Boy managed to percolate through her drug-addled brain, waking her up in time to appreciate the full impact of her whump to the floor. Cracking an eye open, she stared at the dented metal plating underneath her face, wondering if it was an old bit of damage or a new decorative feature that her skull had just produced. "Oh good God, I feel like...like. Charon, come up with something crappy so I can feel like it. Charon?" Scrubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she blearily looked around the bottom foot of the room, slowly gathering her jumbled thoughts together into some sort of cognizant order as she examined everything in her new, low little world. "Why don't I have carpet. A mooshy one, right here, there should be one. He's out with Gob, oh, that's nice. Hnngh. You made clinically stupid clinical mistake. That's _not_ nice, very, at all."

"Good morning, Madam! How may I assist you today?" Cort readjusted her head far enough to take in an additional three feet of visual altitude, managing to acquire most of Wadsworth in the process. Still issuing his voice in a solicitous whisper, the robot was fiddling around with a bunch of red wires, turning them into what looked like a little bouquet.

"Are those flowers? I like flowers. Flowers're _pretty_." She closed one eye, reviewing her last words. "I am just so swift this morning. This will be a fantastic day."

"Just so Madam, and yes, they are. 'O, be some other name! What's in a name? that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.' Do you approve, Madam?"

"Of the sculpture or the Shakespeare? Nevermind, I approve of both, even if I'm not in much of a state to appreciate the latter. Just keep doin' what you're doin', Wadsworth. It's all good." Hauling herself up as her butler muttered approvingly, Cort dragged herself up the stairs, the fingers of one hand whirring over the corrugated wall as she bee-lined back to her Infirmary. Flopping down rather unsteadily when she got there, she immediately starting the process of flushing her system out. "One small step for Cort-kind, one giant leap for not being able to remember simple fucking details about Med-X aside from knowing that the pointy end goes into my _ass_. Like _side effects_. Just, just shit on _toast_." She sat for a while, alternately watching Wadsworth fool around and the status of the remaining dreck clearing out of herself, the back of her mind absently noting another series of soft, arm-located beeping as something important but non-threatening, the front deciding whatever it was could wait until she didn't feel like she had a percussion section wedged between the both of them. It could definitely wait until after she ate something.

She finally turned to face it some time later, and for an entirely different reason. Head finally free of the narcotics she had subjected it to and munching on an apple like it was a mortal enemy she had to annihilate, she suddenly found herself irritated with her faithful computerized companion. "_You_, you little bastard, were completely off on your dosage recommendation. It wasn't even _close_ to enough! Is _this_ the thanks I get for keeping you at least half as clean as I should? I mean it _probably _wasn't your fault, maybe the Med-X has degraded in comparison to the properly stored ones back in the Vaul...wait, why the hell are you going blinkity-beepy at me." Cort closed her eyes and shook her head as she reached out to flick the correct switch, wondering when the hell she would get her reasonably adult vocabulary back. All thoughts of her own words departed as new ones started streaming out of her Pip-Boy's speaker grill, her eyes flying wide.

_'This is an automated distress message from Vault-Tec: Vault 101. Message begins: It feels like you left home a long time ago, but I know you're still out there. I just hope you're still alive to hear this. Things got worse after you left. My father's gone mad with power. If you're hearing this, please stop looking for your dad and help stop mine. I changed the door password to my name. If you're hearing this, and if you still care enough to help me, you should remember it. Message repeats:...'_

She was strapped into her armour and eviscerating the contents of the storage lockers before Amata's voice could complete its plea for the second time, searching for everything she thought the three of them would need. One item in particular was escaping her, and she was working herself into a froth trying to find it, not even seeing it was right in front of her face._ I need to take it back, if he sees it he might help, no matter who he's being a jerk for now, and he'll sure as shit ask where it is if I'm not wearing it, the arrogant ass_. "Wadsworth, where's my Goddamned jacket?"

"Which Madam? You have retained several."

"The one that smells like forty freakin' pounds of pomade! Wait, nevermind, I have it." Finally spotting it a foot from her nose, Cort yanked Butch's jacket out and tied it around her hips, knotting it firmly. "Repeater, pistol, assault rifle, bat. Oh God, Dogmeat, I need to get Dogmeat!" His name had barely left her lips before she heard scratching against the door, and she darted to it with a manic smile, yanking it open. "Come on baby, we need you dressed and then we need to get Charon. Let's go let's go _let's go_!"

* * *

**Charon **she got, and after giving Gob a fierce hug and rapid-fire admonitions to be careful, she was tearing back towards 101 for the first time since she had been forced out of it. She had her Pip-Boy repeating Amata's message for his benefit, who did not seem particularly impressed by the contents, the deep, thoughtful look on his face shifting into disgust as he listened to it.

"He went 'mad with power' after you left? _Now _she figures he's gone mad with power? What the _fuck_ did she think trying to scrag your ass was, a fucking _hissy fit_?"

"I don't know, I haven't exactly had a chance to touch base with her lately." Despite herself, Cort was still smiling. "I didn't think I could miss it, but I have, at least some parts of it. Definitely her, I can't wait for you to meet her." Reaching the broken road below the Vault's entrance, she checked her bearings to make sure it was the right break in the cliff face and then started climbing the steep slope, scree and dust sliding out from under her feet. Sensing where this state of mind was going to inevitably lead, namely straight into some kind of screwball escapade, Charon braced his feet and hooked a hand into her belt before she could get any farther, yanking her back into his chest as she yelped in protest. "Let go!"

"Calm down and I will. Now tell me what we are doing, Cort. Tell me what _I'm_ supposed to do, since I'm guessing blowing everyone the fuck away is most likely not what you would prefer, and it's a pretty sure bet that's what they're going to try and do once they 'meet' me."

Cort twisted around and blinked at the surreality of finding herself at an equal height, standing on higher ground. Shaking her head to banish the odd feeling, she objected until the sense in what he was saying percolated through the net of her strained nerves. "What, no they won't, they're...oh Christ no, yes they _will_, or more likely, piss their Goddamned pants. I got a bit of the willies meeting Gob for the first time even with advance notice, so seeing you will scare the sweet creeping _bejeesus_ out of them. Most of them nearly shat themselves over the fucking radroaches!"

"Charming. Orders?"

"I'm in first, you stay far enough back to keep out of sight." Charon instantly scowled, and she scowled right back. "Look, you asked for orders, you've got them. There's no way of telling who's on what side in there, aside from Amata and Alphonse, and if anyone shoots at us I _will _drop them like a fucking molerat, but it won't go very friggin' good if I paste the good _guys_." She shook her head again. "Charon, I'm not worried about _them_, they're nothing compared to what I went through my first week out here, and I was alone then. What I'm worried about is Amata. She's the only reason I made it out of there, and I owe her."

Still scowling, he reached up to tighten her helmet strap, straightening it out from where she had twisted it while putting it on. "I worry about you."

She smiled. "And I love you for it. Now come on, it'll be fine, nobody in there can really hurt me anymore."

Cort had never been so wrong in her life.


	35. George Webber's Got Nothing On Me

_Holy crap! I'm back! What happened? The long and short of it is that a friend of mine passed unexpectedly around the time I last updated, and it more or less sucked the desire to do anything out of me, particularly with where the story is going to go. Having it happen around the holidays kinda sucked too, so I went off the grid until I started to feel better. And that's all I'm going to say about that. _

_I'd like to thank you guys for being patient, and for the alerts and message__s, and to let you know that the story WILL be finished, no matter the bumps on the way. I outlined the entire thing when I started this, writing the rest is just filling in the blanks as needed. So once more, on with the show._

**

* * *

**

**Cort** pulled open the battered, slatted door and looked down the short tunnel leading back to her childhood home, sweeping her Pip-Boy's light through the gloom. Nothing had changed, aside from a few new drifts of dust leading from the base, lined up like tiny sand dunes. Moving rapidly forward, she headed straight for the door control panel, Charon hesitating long enough to take a hard look at the outside before following after. He glanced around at the signs left by the dead refugees scattered around the entrance while she poked at the panel, looking mildly amused until she piped up again, gesturing with her free hand.

"Okay, now move over to the right, right in the corner there. The door will open towards me, and if there's anyone in there, they'll be looking at the controls." Giving her a dark look, he complied, moving out of the sightline she had laid out. Bracing herself, Cort punched the last button, resisting the urge to clap her hands over her ears as the klaxon rang out, the amber safety lights strafing over all three of them, turning the skulls at her feet into grinning, bony party masks. _Great, well-wishers for my next little adventure. They helped so much on my way out of here. _Grabbing her repeater, she dropped it next to her left thigh, hiding it with the line of her leg but ready to shoot from the hip if she had to. She didn't have to. Slightly baffled, Cort slowly peeped her head into the Vault as the giant plug of lead and steel retracted fully, darting her eyes around the entry room as it came to a discordant, squealing halt.

"It's empty. Why is it emp-oh wait, no. There's...whatsisface, he wasn't around much. Kept to himself. Mister Wilkins. Well, I suppose it's farewell Jim, I hardly knew ye." Cort walked up the stairs, nudged the corpse slumped next to the inside door control with one toe and turned around, narrowed her eyes and then smiled approvingly. "_Someone's_ been fooling in here, naughty, naughty. Security camera is gone. Well, that's a plus, but that makes it even weirder that someone isn't guarding the door."

Charon moved up beside her, deciding to take the statement as a release from his position, since there was no one present for him to stay out of sight from. The area was entirely deserted, and while as clean as Vault 112 had been, there were obvious signs of conflict; sawhorses in place and overturned, papers scattered everywhere, and what looked like bullet marks in some of the walls. Idly wondering if they were from this particular conflict or Cort's hasty escape, he answered her question. "Makes sense, if everything's disrupted. Which way."

Cort didn't answer, having spotted another foot protruding out from the maintenance area to the right. Peeping around the door, she tried to keep her guts from falling any farther than they had at seeing that Jim was dead. _Not even two minutes in the front door and already there's bodies. Oh jeeze, oh stars, what if Amata and the others- _

She cut herself off before she could upset herself any further, glancing back to Charon. "This is Steve Armstrong. Bea, oooh, Bea is going to be so upset. He's married to Bea."

Hearing her voice start to jitter, Charon patiently repeated his question. "Which way, Cort? I need to know what to do."

"What? Oh. Yes." Distracted into focusing on him, she slapped the control panel to seal the Vault up again and then turned to look around appraisingly. While it would have been nice to go back through the Overseer's tunnel, something that would most likely take them to the heart of the matter, Cort didn't know how to activate it from this end, and turned back to face the levered door in front of them, sighing. "We're going straight ahead. Remember what I told you."

"Take point."

Despite herself, she smiled at his deadpan delivery. "Nice try. Out of sight, as in stay back, unless I say otherwise, and say it out loud. Don't think I didn't notice what you just did there, coming inside." Turning around as he let out a quiet grump, Cort slipped over to the door in front of the stairs, then nudged it open with one foot after cranking it open. After nothing jumped out at her, she risked taking a good long look into the next room, at least from where she stood. There was nobody in evidence, which didn't surprise her too much; if anyone was going to lay in ambush, this would have been one of the lousiest rooms to do it in. It had cover, true, but it was all made up of one of the giant sets of transformers running to the reactors. Starting a shooting match in there wouldn't have been the smartest move, but then Vault security hadn't proved itself to be the brightest of bulbs on her last day inside. She fidgeted. Now that she was here and ready to move in, she was unsure if she wanted to. _What if there's someone in there? What if there's another dead someone in there, what if I have to make a someone dead? There weren't that many of us to freaking start with, I'll run out eventually it's not like I can pick more up at the store and if they attack Charon-_

Cort jumped as the ghoul in question cleared his throat, and realized that she had been staring into the room and waffling for more than a few minutes. She turned back and raised an eyebrow. He rolled his eyes to the ceiling and held his left arm up, looking exasperated.

"Oh. Right." Trying not to look too sheepish, Cort brought her Pip-Boy up and poked at it, then held up one finger. There was one person in the room, to the left. Just standing there, doing nothing except existing as a comfortably green dot. Considering the dot was close enough to hear her, it either meant it was someone who recognized her from the two words she had uttered and was waiting for her to stop being an indecisive ass, or someone who was so shit terrified they weren't a threat. _Someone, it's someone, but who, who was left, oh just fuck a duck. Hell with it._ Cort rolled her shoulders, chucked caution to the wind, then popped around the jamb and shouted. "Hi!" She blinked, staring down the barrel of a 10mm and into a pair of very nervous and very familar hazel eyes. "Oh! Officer Gomez?"

"Stop right there! I don't know how you got in here..wait, how do you know my name?"

Cort lifted up on her toes, feeling hopeful. Of all the people left in the Vault she could have run into, Herman Gomez was at the top of her list. He had always been nice, looking out for her when she was younger and a rare spark of level-headed rationality on her forced exodus the year before. She supposed that was a big part of why he hadn't just hauled off and shot her after her forced spurt of bravado. _Remember that for next time, idiot. Christ, where did my brains go, same place as my guts? You're too old to be this stupid anymore. _"It's me, Cort. Cort Schafer." She resisted the urge to slap a hand over her face, not wanting to get shot for it. _Oh real graceful, that. What other Cort would you be, you dink._

"What? Hold on..." Gomez lowered his pistol slightly and tilted up his visor, peering at her with an expression that swiftly went from guarded to incredulous, and Cort smiled as he started to sound honestly happy. "Holy moly, it _is_ you! I hardly recognized you with all the dust and grime from out there."

"..._Oh_. Uh, sorry." Smile turning into a pained grimace as an unwelcome and entirely irritating spike of self-conciousness rose up, she tried to furtively brush herself off while Gomez holstered his pistol and kept rambling on.

"Well I guess that explains how you got that door open. You've got more experience with it than most everyone down here combined."

Giving up on her brief attempts at neatening herself, Cort got straight to the point. "Yeah, about why I used that experience; I need to talk with Amata. I got her message."

Gomez frowned. "Amata's message? I don't know what you're talking about, but I'd keep that under your hat, for her sake. She could get in real trouble if people found out she sent you a message. So could I, just for talking with you now."

She snorted and crossed her arms. "Yeah, well, looking at the state of things and the fact that I just tripped over _dead_ Mister Wilkins and Bea's _dead_ husband, I don't really want to know what your current idea of real trouble is. What the hell _happened _in here?"

"Everything went crazy, is what happened. Your dad opened that door, bugs started attacking, and people started going crazy." Nettled, he started sounding crabbier. "When the smoke cleared, there were a lot of casualties and not many answers. Didn't help that our doctor had just left, either. When your dad opened up that gate, he let loose a whole lot of crap, if you'll pardon my language."

"_He_ let!" Cort tucked her arms in tighter as a desire to rake her hands down the man's face surged up in her. _Use your words, you can't kill people with words, words are good. Words cut bloodless_. "Well, it didn't help that the replacement he trained was run out on the Goddamned rails either, Officer Gomez. The last thing Dad wanted to happen was any of _this_."

"Well it would be nice to hear that from him some day. He's got a lot to answer for in the opinions of a lot of people."

"Yeah, they can get in line." Cort muttered, then raised her voice, almost spitting the words out. "Well they can suffer their questions unfulfilled. Dad's dead." Seeing how shocked he suddenly looked, almost like he had taken a shot to the gut, she felt some of the rage draining out of her.

"I'm...I'm sorry to hear that. Regardless of how things turned out down here, he was a good friend. I always figured he'd do well outside."

"He did. He was doing..._we_ were doing really well. Then someone murdered him. It's a long story and I don't feel like telling it, so how about you tell me one, hmm? Tell me why I got hauled back down here."

"Well like I said, what I figured. Well, a lot of folks started thinking he had the right idea. He usually did; people were just as inclined to go to him as to the Overseer when they needed to talk about something or ask advice. I think that's half the reason the Overseer had such a bad reaction-" He thinned his lips as Cort snorted. "Reacted like he did when your father left. After both of you were gone, people started asking themselves, if it was safe out there, why stay down here forever? Well, the Overseer didn't like that one bit, and started cracking down on that sort of thought, and now the whole Vault's split right down the middle, with a whole lot of unhappy people caught in between. Including _me_." Gomez jabbed his armoured chest with a thumb.

"Amata on one side and Alphonse on the other?"

'You got it. Amata and her 'rebels', as they've been labelled, are holed up in your father's clinic. My boy is down there with them. Alphonse is in his office, and the rest of the Vault is one big no man's land. Every so often there's a little skirmish, a few shots fired, a few more people dead."

Cort flipped up her own visor and rubbed her face with both hands. "Jesus Christ. So what now?"

Gomez went back to looking incredulous. "You're asking _me_?"

She dropped her hands and gave him a bland stare. "I'm asking someone who still belongs here and knows a lot more than I do. I'll narrow it down. So what are _you _supposed to do now?"

"Technically, this means I'm supposed to report Amata. To tell the truth, I'm supposed to report you for being here, too. I probably ought to put you under arrest and take you to the Overseer, but frankly, I know better than to try that." Gomez warily eyed her again and then shrugged. "On the other hand, I bet those rebels would like a word with you; a lot of them are your old friends. Now, more than ever. Amata herself was one of the first people to talk about life outside the Vault after you left. No surprise; she always did like you. Of course, if you want, you can just walk away as if you were never here. Out of respect for your dad, I won't even tell anyone I saw you. I've been getting mighty forgetful in my old age, you know?"

Cort stayed quiet for a long moment, thinking and running one hand over the wall next to her, the familiar textures and bumps in the metal making her feel a little bit more secure. "Yeah. But I can't do that. Amata helped me get out of here, so I've got to help her. And I can't leave you all like this."

"One could say it's not your problem to fix, Cort."

"Dad made it my problem to fix. If I don't take care of what he started, who will? Now, I've got to get..." Cort sucked her lips in and trailed off, finally remembering she hadn't entered the Vault on her own. "Oh, uh. There's a couple things I should probably bring to your attention before I do anything else."

"Oh?"

"Yeaaah, uh, we'll do the easy one first." Gomez raised his eyebrows as Cort puckered her mouth and started making a kissing noise, raising them even higher when Dogmeat got up from where he had slumped to the floor, unnoticed in the aftermath of her abrupt greeting and patiently waiting for them to get moving again.

"Is that a...what were they called? A _dog_?"

"Yeah, it is. Neat huh? You can pet him if you want, he's nice. Aren't you honey?" Cort's smile came back as Dogmeat whuffed and sat up in front of Gomez, his tongue lolling out as the man tentatively touched the top of his head. Getting more confident as the dog grinned at him, he started stroking the fine, soft fur on his ears with an entranced look on his face. "Listen, he's not the only one I brought back with me. I have a friend I travel with, and he came along to help me."

Gomez reflexively moved his hand back to the butt of his pistol and looked behind her warily, petting the dog forgotten. "Where is he?"

"I made him hide. Look, you know there's still radiation out there, right? Well, he got exposed to a lot of it, and it ah, hurt him quite a bit. He doesn't look like you or me anymore. Missing a lot of skin, and, uhm." Cort stopped and winced one eye shut as a rasping, irritated voice floated out from around the corner.

"Cort, just get it the _fuck _over with and tell him I look like a damned walking corpse. I'm tired of this shit."

Pinching the line on her nose briefly, Cort threw in the tactful-towel and just spat it out. "Yeah, he looks like a walking corpse. Hell with it. Officer Gomez, I'd like you to meet Charon." She tried to look reassuring while bringing her repeater back up at the same time, keeping it pointed downwards but ready to flick it up and fire at a moment's notice. "Please leave your gun in the holster. We don't need to have any accidents, do we? Charon, please come in."

"No, we doo-YEE-aaagh, _ahrump_!" To his credit, Gomez made it through his first sight of Charon with only a small stagger and a rather high-pitched yelp, which was quickly dropped into a relatively more manly-sounding register. The ghoul stood patiently, letting himself be stared at and refraining from making any moves that the other man might construe as threatening as he stared back. Eventually, Gomez's senses snapped to, and he cleared his throat."P-pleased to meet you, sir."

Charon raised an eyebrow. The greeting didn't sound at all sincere, which didn't shock him in the least, but neither did it appear to be mocking. He grunted in response and directed his attention back to Cort, the movement prompting Gomez to do the same as he had meant it to. Unsurprisingly, the other man looked relieved for an excuse to turn his eyes away.

Cort let out a quiet sigh of relief. She wasn't foolish enough to think that it was an indicator of how the rest of Charon's encounters with whatever was left of the residents would go, Gomez was probably going to be the best out of the lot, but it was at least something encouraging to start with. _Might as well make hay while the sun shines_. "So, they're in the clinic, then? Amata, and etcetera?"

"What? Oh, yeah. They-they are. Listen...I don't particularly feel like getting any more involved, but maybe I should take you there. A lot of people are still mighty angry with you, and with him..." Gomez's gaze slid back to the ghoul unbidden, simultaneously taking in the denuded state of his face and the biggest gun he thought he had ever seen balanced on the shoulder next to it. An extremely big shoulder attached to an extremely big everything else. Forcibly jerking his eyes back to Cort again, he continued. "If they start shooting at you, they'll end up dead. There's less chance of that with me in the way."

Cort frowned and started fidgeting again. "I can't let you do that. You're one of the best people in here."

"Thanks for that, but I wasn't asking permission. You've got your job, I've got mine, and keeping order..." He broke off with a bitter laugh and slapped his visor back down. "Well, I can at least try. Come on. Let's get this over with. I'm tired of this crap and I'd like it to finish, one way or the other."

"I'll be right behind you, I just need to have a word with my, ah, partner. It'll only take a minute." Looking like he was going to object and then appearing to think better of it, Gomez chanced another look at Charon, reluctantly nodded, and moved around the edge of the room, disappearing through a sliding security door on the opposite side. Once the door had dropped back into place, Cort turned to her oversized companion. "Charon?"

"Cort."

"That went well, huh?" She checked the action on her rifle as he snorted, tugged at her armour, checked her rifle again, looked to where Gomez had disappeared and then looked back up at him, eyes wide and solemn. "Charon, I need to ask you something _very_ important."

Charon braced himself for whatever was obviously something particularly serious, which most likely meant that it was going to be something he didn't like. He didn't like any of this already, Gomez's surprisingly tempered reaction not encouraging him in the same way it had Cort. Having already noticed how high-strung the place was making her, he could only see her becoming even more upset when things degenerated as they were bound to. If the situation improved from here, fine, but he held no expectations or illusions that it would. Having things start on a high note would only make the fall even worse when it happened. The best he could do was what she asked of him until she could leave the whole sorry place behind her again. "Yes, Cort."

She hissed a breath in through her teeth and let it out in a rush. "Do I look okay to you?"

He blinked, and then frowned, looking at her closely. After slowly moving his eyes from her feet to her face, he reached out and nudged her around, then repeated the same treatment with her back before turning her forwards again. He grunted in approval. She wasn't injured, her weapons and pack were snugly in place, and her armour was in good repair. He wasn't quite sure what had prompted the question, considering she was conscientious to the point of obsession about her equipment, and blithely chalked it up to nervousness over returning to the hole in the ground she had grown up in. Even though her concern was misplaced, considering the fact she had previously started tearing the place apart in nothing sturdier than a Vault suit, Charon tried to sound as reassuring as possible. "Yes. You're perfectly fine."

Cort sighed in relief; Gomez's comment on her appearance had been driving her nuts since he had made it, making her painfully aware that it had been months since she had taken a look in a mirror. Grooming seeming rather pointless aside from keeping herself as clean as possible, she had no real idea of what she looked like, aside from what she could see when she looked down at herself. What she saw was well-kept armour and suddenly too-prominent scars on too-tanned arms. Those aside(and there was nothing she could do about them anyway, so she didn't see much point in worrying about that), if Charon said she looked presentable, then she did, the ghoul being far too blunt to obfuscate to spare even her feelings. _Okay, that's good, I look _good, _so I feel good. Gomez probably just had dirt on his stinkin' visor. _"Alrighty then, thank you. There might be bugs on some of these mugs, but there ain't no bugs on me, as the old song goes! I'm ready. I'm really ready. Let's go."


	36. You're Going to Catch It, Catching Up

_Thanks so much for the condolences and lovely reviews, and I'm so glad to see you guys enjoyed the two little oneshots I wrote! One for the interaction between Maggie and Gob in chapter 34, and a little holiday thing, for any who had missed them. Good for you for writing geshagurl! I hope you have fun with it. :) _

* * *

**Cort** had caught up with Gomez at the foot of a stairwell. He started moving forward as soon as she appeared, then stopped just as quickly as someone in the large central common room ahead started to shout. Giving her a grim look, he drew his pistol and motioned for her to stay. "Uh oh. Wait here, this doesn't sound good."

Cort huffed and shouldered her repeater, falling in beside him as he started down the corridor again. "Not good is why I'm here, so let's get...wait, is that _Freddie_?" Both of them skidded to a halt at the entrance. Old Officer Taylor was crouched in front of them behind an upturned table, and she confirmed that it had been Freddie Gomez she had heard shouting, Taylor trying to yell back in a quavering tone.

"C'mon you old geezer, just let me out!"

"You know I can't do that, Freddie. Now get back down below, before I have to do something we'll both regret."

Cort gaped slightly as Freddie shouted back at Taylor with a completely unexpected level of bravado, slapping his hands, one of them clutching a switchblade, against his leather jacket for added effect. "What, you're going to lock me up like you did the Brotch? You can't cage a Tunnel Snake man, cause we rule!" Her mouth fell even wider as Taylor yelped and opened fire, Freddie instantly diving back down the doorway behind him, echoes slinging around the room from the gunshots and their shouts. "Shitshitshit!"

"Stay back!"

The elder Gomez's reaction was immediate, and he rushed forward to slap the other man's arm down. "Taylor, stop shooting, damnit! That's my son!"

Finally breaking out of her stunned woolgathering, Cort joined him. "What are you doing, that's Freddie, it's Freddie!"

Taylor jerked his arm away from Gomez, clutching the pistol to his chest and blinking nearsightedly through his visor. "I didn't mean to fire, I really didn't. I just wanted to scare him off! But he had a knife! I can't be too careful with those rebels!"

Cort grabbed the sides of her helmet and screeched. "It's fricking Freddie _Gomez_, he'd be more liable to stab himself in the ass before he'd have a chance of hitting you, he brought a knife to a gun fight for fuck's sake!" The hands came down and she stamped one foot, hard. "And you've _got_ the gun!"

"I tell you, I'm scared of them. I never know when they're going to try something dangerous!" Cort's identity finally sank in for Taylor as she gave another outraged stamp, and his face quickly went from shocked surprise into a sneering mix of fear and loathing. "You! Don't you know enough to stay away?"

"Don't you have any Goddamned sense in your head?" She reached out and wrenched the pistol away from him as Gomez wandered halfway across the room to look towards where Freddie had disappeared, thumbing the safety on and tucking it into her waistband. "No more gun for you! You'll get it back after class, or, or something. Now, I don't suppose you want to tell me what's happened down here, and why you're trying to blow a kid's head off?"

Taylor snapped at her, his voice querulous and more tired than pained. "I lost my poor wife Agnes, is what happened. In all the chaos and fighting, her old ticker just couldn't take it anymore."

Hearing that, Cort felt another part of her old life crashland into her guts. _I could have fixed that, if they just hadn't_- "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"Well, you _still _shouldn't know. Why the blazes are you even here? All of this is your doing, for opening the Vault."

The lump ignited like a sick piece of coal, hot and sweaty. "Really, because I don't remember reading about the Vault going to hell in a handbasket when Agnes herself went outside." She grinned as he twitched. "Yeah, I know about that, her and Lewis and Anne Palmer going out on missions for the old Overseer, who I dearly wish was still kicking around. I know that someone else left a few years ago, too, _after_ Dad and I got here. The only reason this place has gone to shit now is because of that fucknut Alphonse."

He stammered, his gaze carting around everywhere but back to her as he tried to keep up the charade. "It's never opened before. You-you don't know what you're talking about."

Disgusted, she shook her head. "Christ. I know I need to go."

Taylor snapped his eyes back to her, and his expression hardened again. "Yes, you _do_."

Cort flicked her own eyes to the ceiling and called over her shoulder, not caring about Taylor now past the knowledge that he had no way of hurting anyone. "You're fine, Charon." She rolled them again as the old man gave out a terrorized shriek and hid behind another upturned table as the ghoul strode into the room, shaking his head disgustedly.

"How many people did you leave alive down here. I want to know when I can expect the pleasantries to be over."

She sobered at his words, the disjointed feeling she had gotten upon entering the Vault returning to knock back the spiteful flash of temper. "Soon. You can expect soon." Wanting to feel less mean and more like her old self, Cort walked over to where Gomez was still standing as Charon started assessing the new area, the man having ignored the entire exchange.

"Officer Gomez?"

"That's the first time I've seen him in over two weeks." He fell silent again, staring blankly at the door, and Cort tentatively tried again.

"Officer...Hey, Herman?" She reached out and patted him softly on the arm, giving it a firm squeeze when he flinched. "He's fine, Freddie's fine, I'll even make sure when I get down there." Cort suppressed her own flinch at the lost look on his face when he turned to face her.

"Sorry, what were we doing?"

"You were taking me to see Amata. So I can make sure Freddie's alright."

Gomez visibly pulled himself back together, checking his sidearm and glancing around. "Right. Right, I'll just wait for you downstairs again. Make sure it's clear there."

Cort watched them go, lifting one foot to rub nervously up the back of her calf. She had expected people to be upset, but Gomez was displaying signs of having suffered long term trauma, something she wasn't sure she could handle on a large scale. She had done that for Gob and Charon, one deliberately and one intuitively, but to her, doing it for people in the Vault was an entirely different kettle of fish. _Christ, sewing a limb back on would be easier than this, that's what I was instructed for, I hadn't started my official job training yet. Oooh, why couldn't the old minister still be alive, this kind of thing was his job, until...Daddy, why can't you still be here, this is the sort of thing you dealt with. And two weeks, he hasn't seen him in two _weeks_? Just how long has all this been going on?_

Looking around for answers and taking in the dreary state of the room Cort stalled again, having finally gotten a good bead on just how bad her surroundings were, her eyes starting to roll around in her head like a mad dog's. "It's not supposed to look like this, it's not supposed to _be_ like _thiiis_. I'm not supposed to be the grownup down here, nono_no_." Everything in the tiered room was a mess, doors barricaded, bloodstains everywhere, along with more scattered papers and battered furniture. She reached up to wrench at her chin strap, suddenly feeling like it was choking her, pausing when Charon walked up and rasped out something completely nonsensical.

"I approve of the new sign."

"What? What are you talking-" Cort broke off as she looked up and then followed his gaze to the upper wall across the room, clapped a hand over her mouth, and started fizzing. Someone, God only knew who considering the angle, had repainted the 'Thank You, Overseer!' that dominated the top of the wall to something much less flattering. _Butch, oh that just _had _to be Butch. He's the only one just stupid enough to pull that off and still spell it right_. She lost it entirely as Charon blandly continued, drawing her attention to the figure standing in the circular window adjacent to the sign by pointing at it.

"Don't think I'd want to fuck him, though." Listening to her choke out a string of snorts that blossomed into full-blown giggling, he made his mouth twitch slightly in amusement and let her see it. A small deception on his part was better than honesty right now; the happier he could keep her, the better his chances of getting Cort out without her having another breakdown. It bothered him, but what was happening to her down here made him furious, her confidence wavering and her body language broadcasting her unstable state of mind so loudly it was shrieking at him. It was the reason she didn't notice he had just fooled her with his own.

"You tell absolutely horrible, terrible jokes." She shook her head and looked back to him as he relaxed and stretched, her disgusted expression ruined by the smile that kept breaking through it. It was patently true; the ghoul's rare attempts at humour stank, for the most part. It still did nothing to dim the fact that he was extremely good at the delivery and timing of the lousy quips he did choose to make, usually deadpan and always precise. _Perfect thing to say at the perfect time. Always._

He looked back down at her and shrugged nonchalantly, then gave her an out. "You keep laughing, jackass. Should we keep going?"

Cort let her breath out in a woosh, saluted at what she presumed to be Alphonse hovering behind the glass, and then flipped him the bird. "Have to keep going. Come on, farther up, further in. Well, down, really." Charon walked forward for a few paces, stood directly under one of the lights and stared up at the man in the window, letting him take a good, long look before following after.

* * *

**Cort** tried not to hunch her shoulders as she trailed Gomez through more doors and down more stairs into the Atrium level, feeling like the short hairs on the back of her neck were standing up so high they were about to spring off by the time she made it to the Cafeteria. Gomez was already through the far door, standing at attention and looking down the hallway to the Living Quarters, Charon giving her a placid look as he planted himself outside the near one.

Comforting and cozy. That's the first impression she got, focusing on the floor instead of the room itself. She had played hopscotch on the red and white tiles with Amata, before they had gotten old enough to think it was silly; at least too silly to do in public. Relieved to see at least one part of the Vault looking normal, the feeling ebbed away as she took in the slumped, defeated atmosphere of the room. Ellen Deloria was just slumped and drunk, half-sprawled over the counter in front of her and reeking of fumes. _Well, there's something that hasn't changed. _Cort wasn't particularly struck by her lack of empathy this time; Ellen had always been drunk and always refused to do anything about it, turning down her father's offers of having her addiction removed so many times that even he had stopped trying. All the problems and faults Butch had could be squarely laid at his mother's feet, and Cort loathed her for it. Even Alphonse's overbearing control of Amata would have been better than the emotional torture Ellen had subjected Butch to.

It was the reason she could never bring herself to hate him, and why they had been able to be some skewed sort of friends, hanging out or at each other's throats in equal measures. _Someone who still had their mother growing up should have had a good one._ Deciding that there was nothing worthwhile to be gained from trying to talk to the woman, Cort went to move past her and stopped when Ellen herself leaned out, peering through a messy wave of hair spilling over a too-high forehead.

It's all kind of blurry for me, but I hear I owe you for saving me." The blank look on her face resolved into a muzzled contempt. "But don't expect much. the whole thing was your Dad's fault in the first place! Always sticking his nose...in things."

Cort ground her teeth. "I have to go."

Ellen belched, and slumped back over her glass. "Yes, you do."

Cort resisted the urge to haul the vodka she kept for cleaning out of her pack and slap it in front of Ellen in an effort to speed up the slow death she was subjecting herself to._ I need to stop saying that to people. It does not have good results._ She made it halfway down the room, passing the dirty red booths before the next slumped figure resolved itself into someone she had actually missed. "Stanley!" Cort slid into the seat across from him, shifting her pack around to fit. "I've missed you." She waited for him to lift his head out of his arms, for his friendly, sleepy eyes to fix on her.

His head came up, and her own smile froze on her face. His eyes weren't friendly, and sleepy had moved into total exhaustion, stubble on his face and his white comb-over flicked up in a cowlick. "Cortenay? You don't belong here. I don't know that I should be talking to you."

"I grew up here, and I came back because, ah, my Pip-Boy picked up an automated distress signal." She lifted her arm slightly. "You were right about this model you know. It's sturdy as anything, I've had a lot of opportunity to..." She trailed off, seeing that he didn't appear to care. "I guess the Mainframe decided that enough had gone to pot to warrant broadcasting it."

Stanley sighed heavily, rubbing his temples. "Well, I can see that happening. With all of the bugs and the fires, there was an awful lot of strain on the systems down on the reactor level. Our water chip's pretty delicate right now, but I'm working on setting her right again."

The bugs. That was something that had bothered her then, and was still bothering her enough now to press him about it. "Where did the bugs come from, anyway?"

"Popular opinion is your Dad let them in when he opened that door."

Cort shook her head and frowned. "Yeah, but there were already radroaches _in_ here. You know that, I shot enough for you down in the reactor room. And they don't congregate in numbers that large outside. You might find a dozen altogether at once in one spot, but that's it. Dad wouldn't just let a crapwad of the ankle-biters in on his way out, either. It's not like he left the damn door ajar, he wanted me to stay in here. I mean, think about it. Why so many so sudden?"

Stanley looked like he didn't want to think about that, or anything else."I don't know. We'll probably never know. Look, Cortenay, maybe you should just go."

She snapped at him. "I'll go when I'm _damn_ well ready to this time, and _not_ before." Cort grimaced as he flinched, even managing to make that reaction look tired. "How long's it been since you had anything for your headaches? I'll be going into Dad's clinic, I can bring you something back."

"A while. Thanks." That said, Stanley folded his arms on the table and buried his head in them, clearly stating he was done with talking for the time being. Cort bit her lip and shook her head, then glanced over her shoulder to the last person in the room, slumping when she recognized the flat-topped haircut.

_Oh just peachy. It's Sadism Junior._ Wally Mack was slumped over the far counter, nonchalantly brooding out the window that backed on the corridor to the Living Quarters. He was missing his Tunnel Snakes jacket, something that had kept her from picking up immediately on his identity, but she held no reservations about him not having paid full attention to everything that had gone on behind him, regardless of his apparent disinterest. Wally had always been the brains of that little horde of hoodlums, only staying subordinate to butch by dearth of years and size. If anything, the lack of the jacket made her even more keyed up. It meant that he was no longer associated with Butch's gang for whatever reason, and no matter what the reason, it spelled bad news for anyone weaker than Wally. Thankfully, there weren't many who were.

Cort wasn't quite sure what was wrong with the boy, and didn't find herself wanting to think any harder about it now than when she had been growing up. She didn't know if it was because of nature or nurture, and didn't much care. Most of the really vindictive ideas for trouble-making or torturing her and Amata had come from him, and the decision to have them as targets had probably also been his idea, not that he had any plan that could counteract her ability to mess with their heads. _Lucky us, the easiest targets, lucky I outstrip everyone in the brains department, we were really the _only _targets. His sister Susie scared him to death, and Christine's father had no problems giving her a belt or two, so what would stop him from doing it to a bunch of scrawny boys. Jesus. How could Dad leave me here with these people? I was supposed to live and have a family with them? Why am I even trying to save these people?_

For the space of a second, Cort decided that overall, she was much happier topside, she should just try to take Amata and leave with anyone else who wanted to go instead of sorting things out, they could adapt like she had, then remembered just what her life entailed. _I'm happier being a killer. I killed Wally's brother. I've killed other people's families. I'm...what the hell _am _I? _

Considering how confused she now felt, and the fact that she was dimly aware she had done something to his older brother like Gob had done to Moriarty, Cort got out of the booth, deciding to slide past him and hope for the best. Just like always, Wally couldn't let her get away without opening his fat mouth. He nailed her just as she went far enough to have to turn to be able to talk to him.

"Oh boy, are you in trouble."

_Christ, maybe I should just knock out the people I don't want to talk with, it would save me time. _Cort forced her voice to stay even, resigning herself to another repetitive conversation. She would be damned if she would come out of one with Wally on the retreating end, no matter what she felt like. "Really, I had no idea, whatsoever, that my reputation was in a state of social disarray. Want to tell me about the rebels? I hear they're in more trouble than me, even, possibly."

"What do you expect from idiots like them? I'm just glad I was done with Butch's stupid gang before they got involved in all this." Wally tilted his head back and gave her a nasty grin she didn't much like. "You shoulda seen my Pop, he personally saved old Stanley! But guess you wouldn't know what it's like to have a hero for a dad, would you?"

_Oh, that tears it_. "I don't know, do you know what it's like to have an abusive, impotent misogynistic asshole for one?"

Wally's lip curled up in a sneer. "Remember when I hit you with that baseball bat? It wasn't an accident. I should have hit you harder."

Cort tilted her head and smiled, then hissed at him in a sibilant whisper. "Remember when I beat your psycho brother to death? That wasn't an accident, either." Wally's eyes flicked wide with shock, and she felt a surge of elation. _He didn't know. Oh, I can have fun with this, yes I can. This is for making my life a living hell._ "Nobody told you that, little old me took out big ol' Stevie? He squealed, Wally. Squealed and begged and died. I should have made you wat-" Wally's fist came up, aiming for her nose, and Cort quickly dipped her chin into her chest, crowing to herself as she felt his punch connect solidly with the top of her helmet. He howled, pulling back his injured hand and cradling it to his chest, and she snapped her head back up to leer at him. "Yes! He sounded just like that. Good job."

"I'm going to-"

"Run. I don't have the time or inclination to deal with your brand of psychological shit, so we'll keep it simple. _You_ have a baseball bat. _I_ have a baseball bat, four guns, three knives, a dog with an aggressive venereal fixation, a mercenary with a shotgun, twelve grenades in two different flavours and a _friggin' _frag mine. So you're going to run, Wally; run right now, right quick." Cort grabbed him by the back of his suit, hauled him off his stool, and shoved him through the door. Ever the smart one, Wally ran. She kept herself from wanting to run him down, and signalled over her shoulder to Charon. The big merc appeared silently beside her a few seconds later without incident, Cort having correctly guessed that people too drunk and exhausted to pay attention to a dog clicking around wouldn't notice a ghoul who could move like he wasn't there in the first place. Both companions at her back, a comforting buffer between her and everything she had waded through, Cort left the Cafeteria and went down the hall towards Gomez, who stopped short of triggering the next door and turned to her with a pained look on his face.

"All right, this is as far as I can go. Amata's up there, in the clinic with the rest of them. I'd take you closer, but they don't get along with Security. Good luck."

"I'll make sure Freddie's okay." She fidgeted as he turned to leave, not wanting to let the only friendly person she had met so far go. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, Cort. So am I." Cort watched him retreat back the way they had come, spun around, and then triggered the door. _Almost there._


	37. Stacked Up and Decked Out

_Thanks for the new reviews/alerts/faves and hello new people! Welcome back, old people. :)_

* * *

**"Jesus** Christ on a crispy cracker, Butch, knock it off! It's me!"

Cort pushed her visor up and swore. She had slipped around a shelving unit jammed against the top of the stairs, switching to her pistol to cover the cramped space, and crashed directly into the boy, the scent of hair cream and leather puffing over her with the force of impact. Looking up and seeing him pulling back to throw his switchblade while his other hand pressed against his forehead, she shouted at him again. "I _swear_, if you try to throw that piddly little pigsticker at me..." Cort trailed off and tilted her head. He was staring at her with his mouth hanging open, blue eyes peeping out from behind a screen of mussed-up brown curls. "Butch?" _Crap, how hard did I hit him?_

Not one to get distracted by a little grime(who ever really saw behind his ears or under his collar _anyway_? Nobody, unfortunately) Cort's appearance had struck Butch in an entirely different way, and not just by her nearly knocking his block off. While everyone else so far had either tried to ignore or been repulsed by the unnerving changes they had seen in her, changes everyone else would continue to have the same reaction to, Butch went in the opposite direction, greedily taking note of all of them as he tried to get his marbles back. He saw tanned skin covering corded muscle, stony eyes staring out at him over a splash of freckles, something he had never seen outside of pictures. Instead of a shapeless Vault suit, the healthy curves Charon had worked so hard to restore were wrapped up in combat armour and studded with fascinating weapons, and topping it like some kind of sweet icing, his own jacket was swaying from her hips. She looked like something out of a comic book, or an old film. The new white line on her nose crinkled and showed up more as she started grinning at him, she was grinning at _him_, and his reaction from there was sweet and simple. Butch went from zero to crush in ten seconds flat.

Cort had no reaction, aside from a rising amusement at his gape-mouthed silence. She was completely oblivious. "Butch. _Hello_, Earth to Butch, come in." Twisting to see where he was looking and pulling the leather jacket tight against her rear with her free right hand, she inadvertently made it worse. "What, is there something stuck to my ass?"

Butch started to ask 'damn baby, back that caboose up over here', realized what he was about to say and to whom, and half choked himself on keeping the words in as he pulled himself together. _Shit me, I want to dry-hump Queen Geek_.

Cort tugged her bottom lip in and bit it, trying not to laugh as he sputtered and increasing his discomfort still further. "Cat got your tongue?"

_Oh, God. I'd like _her _to get my tongue. Shit, SHUTTUP!_ Butch stalled for a few more short moments as he tried to pull together something sufficiently cool and aloof to hit her with and then practiced saying it in his head, ruining the effect he was going for more than a bit. "Damn, look who's come waltzing back into the Vault? It takes some real balls coming back here after everything you and your Dad screwed up. But if you've gotta be back, might as well make yourself useful." He stopped, the tough facade cracking slightly without his wanting it to. "You gotta help us."

Cort ignored another slap at herself and James and just focused on the boy as he put away his switchblade and swaggered, then frantically whipped a comb out to fix his hair, finally noticing it had been mussed. Realizing she found his silly posturing comforting, she then experienced enough mental dissonance to almost start drooling. _Oh dear _God._ I want to hug Butch_. She got it together significantly faster than he had, leaving him hanging for only a few seconds. "Yeah well, I always had a bigger set than you anyway, Butch. Where's Amata?"

"Oh. Uh, she's in the clinic, with everyone else we got on our side. Want me to take you there?"

Cort gave him an odd look. "Thaaanks, Butch, but it's like, right down the hallway. Right there. I can see it."

"Well pardon me, your majesty. Suit your dorky little self." Butch jammed his hands in his jacket pockets as she reholstered her pistol and strutted beside her as she started down the hall, hoping it didn't look like he was trying to walk with her and doing exactly that. _Cool, be cool, chicks dig that._

Heart soaring, Cort felt like she was practically floating into the clinic, darting her eyes around as Butch made some self-congratulatory comment about finding and bringing her in, taking note of everyone in the room, too excited to see how few of them there were yet. _I see Susie and Freddie and Christine and Andy and Bea! Bea in the back room and up front, up front_-

"_Amata_!"

"Oh my God you're back! You actually came back!"

Butch watched as Cort broke into a beautiful, sunny smile, held her arms out and rushed towards her best friend, Amata doing the same. He was trying to imagine getting that reaction for himself when Amata suddenly ground to a halt a foot from impact, clapping her hands to her face.

"Oh good gosh, Cort. You stink!"

Cort slowly dropped her arms and sighed, the smile falling off her face. "Thaaaanks."

Amata pulled back, trying to neaten her messy black bun and keep a hand over her face at the same time, caught between courtesy and insult. "It's just...you smell like something in your Dad's lab that got left out too long. And you're dirty!"

Cort sighed again, trying to tie up the frayed ends of her self-esteem. "That's what the outside is made of, Amata. Dirt."

Butch curled his lip up in disgust as Cort's shoulders slumped even farther. The last thing you _ever_ did, unless you were trying to royally piss her off, was tell Cort she smelled or looked bad. He should know, knew it better than anyone; just like he knew the best way to push Amata's buttons was to tell her she was getting fat. Besides, the odour coming off Cort wasn't really a stink. It was exotic. It was from outside, _top_side, the big wide free world in all its freakin' aromatic glory. It was...okay, admittedly a little ripe. Butch surreptitiously dipped his face towards his shoulder and sniffed. It wasn't like he was doing much better, though, not with the way they'd been forced to live for the last few weeks, so maybe her own funk would keep her from noticing his when he finally made his move. Whatever that would be. He should probably do something now. "I thought you was supposed to be the one with manners, Ah-_mata_. Besides, none of us are exactly fresh as little daisies right now."

Cort tossed him a grateful look. "_Thank_ you, Butch."

"Oh, _whatever_." Butch sneered while giving a mental fist-pump.

"Cripes, nevermind then. Look, I've had a fine time getting down here and-wait. Freddie?" Belatedly remembering her promise to the elder Gomez, Cort squinted to where the junior was slumped at the back of the room, pressing a not very clean scrap of gauze to his forehead, peeking out at her from under it.

"Yeah?"

"You okay? I told your Dad I'd ask after Taylor went bonkers. He didn't actually hit you, did he?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, and nah, he didn't, loony old fart. I got this trippin' down the stairs. Andy'll take a look at it after he's finished with Bea."

"You have _Andy_ for a _doctor_?" Cort raised an eyebrow and turned back to Amata, giving her a wide-eyed, censorious look. "Amata, I'm not sure if that's a very good-"

"What the heck is that?"

She looked around, distracted as Susie blatted out nervously. Following the direction of her stare, Cort felt her mood improve. "Oh. That, is a _dog_." She smiled proudly as a collective _'oooh' _went up around the room, Dogmeat sitting up and grinning in appreciation at what he considered the appropriate response to his presence, however tardy it may have been. _Do your magic, sunshine._ "He's _my _dog."

Freddie perked up immediately, an avid look on his face. "There's dogs up there?"

One companion out of the bag, Cort decided to get down to business. There was no use wasting time on asking what had gone on if she wasn't going to be able to help anyone, depending on their reaction to Charon, and the ghoul was ranking higher on her list than even her old friends were. _There's still people down here who could help, damnit, if they would just stop being dipshits. They don't like him being here, they can do this all themselves._ "There's lots of things up there. Including-"

Amata squealed. "I knew it! I _knew_ there was more, and I just knew you'd come back."

Cort blinked, put off slightly by her friend's exuberance under the circumstances. "Well yeah I came back, you sounded freaked in your message. You're the only reason I got out in the first place. I still don't know how I got out. But I'm back, with the dog, and including-"

Amata rattled on, oblivious. "I just wish we could have saved more people. Jonas, and the Hannons, and so many others died that night. It was bad enough they died because my father was trying to keep the door closed, but then I found out it was all to protect a lie! I found out, the Vault wasn't always closed! They lied to us about it for our entire lives!"

_Well way to get with the program, Amata_. Cort stared at her, non-plussed. "How did you finally figure it out? There's no way your Dad told you."

Amata glanced around like she was about to impart some kind of juicy gossip, eyes shining. "After that night, I heard Wally's father say we should never have taken you or your Dad into the vault. I found out the Vault used to be open, but for some reason, they closed it off when we were babies and swore to hide it had ever happened. And even though we know the truth now, Dad still won't let us make our own decisions! I mean, it's not like we want to abandon the Vault, or anything!" She scrunched her nose up in thought. "Well, Butch does but he's too big a coward to go out on his own."

"Hey, shuttup! Like you'd go out there alone, horselips." Both girls ignored him, and Amata continued, getting even more excited.

"Most of us had accepted that the outside was certain death and things would always stay the same down here. But now we know they don't have to be! After all, it was enough to get you and your Dad to leave, so there _must_ be something good out there."

Starting to feel frustrated and tired, very tired in point of fact, Cort tried again. "Dad left because he had unfinished business to take care of, which I need to tell you about. He left me in here to protect me, if you'll believe that, and going out there blind cost me. There's good, yeah, but I need to tell you about that and a lot of other things, including-" She bit her tongue as Amata vociferously ran roughshod over her yet again.

"Maybe he thinks _he'_s protecting us, but all he's really doing is condemning us. I thought parents were supposed to want a better world for their children? Well, there's a new world waiting right outside that door. And we're not going to give up until we can reach it."

Cort squinted an eye shut at the sudden loud chorus she was bombarded with, questions and statements surging out of everyone as Amata's speech whipped them into a froth, trying to talk over each other with increasing vehemence until it sounded like nothing more to her than frantic, needy white noise._ Stop it stop it stopITSTOPIT. _She dug her nails into her palms and raised her own voice, nearly roaring the first word. "_Including_ the guy I brought with me to help."

It garnered her another chorus, this one unified, a mix of girlish curiosity and a surprising tenor streak of indignation. "A _guy_?"

Amata looked around her at the door, hopeful and fearful at once. "Uhm, your Dad came back with you?" James would be a wonderful ally, an adult with influence, but he would also make her father flip his everlasting nut.

Cort swallowed over a lump in her throat. _Not now, no, not dealing with it right now_. "No, not, not Dad. Dad's...this is a new friend of mine."

Butch glared at her, looking affronted as everyone else looked even more interested. "What the heck did you bring some stiff back with you for?"

_Wait, did Butch just sound pissed I brought a...Christ, I am going nuts. _Cort gave her head a little shake. "_Because_, Butch. I'll warn you all like I warned Officer Gomez, who didn't have a problem with him, by the way." _As far as I am aware. That's totally not a fib._ "He's a ghoul, which means he's got a type of radiation sickness, and so he looks like a walking corpse. More or less. And he's not contagious, or anything. So don't be a bunch of total squares and stare or something. He's uhm. Sensitive about it." _That totally sounds better than saying I'll shoot them. _"And if any of you freak out and try to hurt him or anything, I'll totally blow a Goddamned hole in your asses." _That just felt good._

"Jeeze _louise_, alright Cort. Tell him he can come in, we're not a bunch of jerks." Amata glanced towards Butch. "Well, we're not all a bunch of jerks."

"Stuff it, Mutt-face."

"Don't get started on me you greaseball, I'm the one leading-"

"HEY!" Both jumped, startled as Cort barked at them. "_Okay_, well, moving right along." _What the fuck is this, grade school? _She shook her head again, then poked it into the hallway, feeling half incredulous, half exasperated and very, very old. "Charon! It's okay, you can come in now."

Everyone looked at the doorway expectantly as brisk, quiet footsteps started approaching from down the corridor. Charon stepped into the room and stood at ease behind Cort, feet spread and arms loosely crossed. The Vault dwellers tracked their eyes up from the general area of his chest where they had expected his head to be, focused in on where it actually was, and stared. Cort slapped a hand over her face in frustration and then peeked out from between her fingers, waiting. Charon blandly stared back the room and waited right along with her.

There was a moment of dead silence before nearly everyone in the clinic screamed, some of them looking like they were about to get friendly with terror-induced incontinence from the way their knees were slamming together. Charon just looked terminally bored, wondering when the noise would finally peter out of them. Cort rolled her eyes and leaned against him, doing it again when Christine heaved, tipped over like a drunk seal and puked in the corner. Pressing against the reassuring bulk behind her as the scent of vomit started wafting towards them, she tried to keep her patience. _I have to maintain my calm. If I do not maintain my calm, things will go badly. Sweet flaming crap, again with this, why won't they shut UP. _"Are all of you done now, because if there's something you needed me to do, I'd like to do it and get back to my own business."

Butch yelped from where he had fetched up on the edge of James' old desk, white-knuckling the rim as he pressed himself back, unsurprisingly regaining his words before anyone else. "It's a fuckin' zombie!"

Cort whipped her head around, snapping at him. "He is not a zombie. He's a ghoul."

'What the everliving fuck is a ghoul?"

She had the bizarre urge to say 'he is, dumbass' before she reined herself in, reminding herself that everyone in the room had just had one hell of a big shock unloaded on them. "Ghouls are people, an entire race of formerly human people, most of whom were born before the Great War, who got the short end of the irradiated stick, just like I said. They know more than you, will outlive you thanks to an outrageously extended lifespan, and are one of your best fucking bets for not biting the dust when you get up top and start stumbling around. You know, _if_ you can keep from insulting them, you giant twink. So do not call him, _any_ of them that. _Ever_ again."

He fixated immediately on Cort's command, finding a truculent bit of backbone in the automatic desire to do the opposite of what someone was telling him to do. "Or what?"

"Or I'll beat you senseless, is what."

"You wish you could beat me." Butch tried to keep it together as Cort rolled her eyes and snorted, his own insult painting unwanted pictures in his head. _Sweet Saint John the Ballsack, she just keeps getting hotter, stay cool, keep it coo-! _ He shot into the air as someone shrieked behind him, only saved from slipping to the floor on the way back down when his ass painfully caught on the lip of the desk.

"_What is it, oh God what is it_!"

"I see you've gone deaf since I left, Christine. How unfortunate." Cort turned her head up to Charon, who was still staring impassively out into the room and patiently waiting for her next instruction. "Maybe you should say something, it might help. I think that helped Officer Gomez."

"All of you are gutless morons." He jerked his chin towards the bipedal lump that was trying to resolve itself back into Christine. "Especially you."

"I don't think that helped." Cort took stock as he shrugged unapologetically. Everyone had stopped screaming entirely when Charon had spoken, looking at him with expressions ranging from plain shock to disgust. She paused, coming around to Susie. The blonde looked like she was actually trying to make sense of the situation, eyes flicking around the room and back to them. It wasn't aggressive, her gaze was too empty and blinking for that, looking more like her brains were trying to turn over, but Cort decided to keep an eye on her nonetheless. Turning fully back to Amata, she felt a sudden burst of love for her old friend, pushing aside the irritation and impatience she had felt at the other girl's naiveté. She had cut her shrieking off after a single yelp, and was the only one who was steadily looking at Cort, putting the ball in her court and patiently waiting for the next move. Her mouth twitched as Christine heaved again, unable to help it. Amata's twitched right back. _Oh Jesus, how much I've missed her!_ "Amata?" Cort made an effort to look serious.

"Yes Cort." Amata made one right back.

Cort gave her the ball. "I'd like you to meet Charon."

Amata straightened her back and walked up as Cort stepped to the side, almost managing to make it in a straight line as she advanced towards the quiet, half-skinned giant, trying not to flinch when his milky eyes flicked down to focus on hers. Maintaining eye contact was important in these situations, but oh _God_ they seemed like the worst part of him she could possibly look at. _Manners. No matter what, you're a leader, and leaders have manners. They do the hard things. I just wish I had known there were going to be scary hard things. _She corrected her posture again as she quavered, carefully checked her right hand to make sure it was clean, and offered it politely to the most horrific thing she had seen in her life. "Greetings, resident of the surface. My name is Amata. I am very pleased to meet you." She steeled herself as he slowly uncrossed his arms, exposing hands she thought would be very quite capable of crushing her head. _Oooh jellybeans. I'm gonna die in perfect politeness and protocol. Daddy will be so proud._

Charon had a weird sense of déjà vu, taking in the girl's strange mannerisms. It was like seeing a blank copy of Cort, before the Wasteland had started recording itself in her, writing over the person she was and leaving her old self underneath like a ghost image. It departed somewhat as he noted how much Amata's hand was trembling, the girl obviously annoyed with herself that it was doing so even through her fright. The annoyance still fit, but the trembling did not. For whatever reason -simple naiveté, brashness born from clinical curiosity, or just her own brand of friendly lunacy- from the moment she hobbled into his life, Cort had never been afraid of him, and he suddenly realized how much that actually meant.

Wanting to play nice for Cort but not wanting to make her friend drop dead from shock or eject her own lunch, he took care to grasp Amata's hand gently, slowly shaking it twice before letting go and recrossing his arms again, leaning back against the wall behind him to watch her carefully and intimate a slightly respectful retreat on his part. In Charon's experience, smoothskins would generally do one of two things after voluntarily touching a ghoul, as rare as that was, and he could see the girl fighting against the most popular choice even as hard as she tried to hide it. His opinion of her edged up a slight notch when she turned back to speak to everyone without scrubbing her hand briskly against something to get the imagined taint of him off her skin. Whatever her personal feelings, she was trying to set an example for what were nominally her people, however a paltry selection of them there were.

"It's all right, everyone."

Cort shook her head wearily, finally unstrapping her helmet and vigorously running a hand over her head before shucking her pack, forcing herself to ignore a few startled jumps from around the room as Charon dutifully did the same. _If things were all right, I wouldn't be here. If things were all right, I never would have left._ "Lets have a little talk about the rest of the state of the Vault, huh? Get everything sorted."

Not quite sure how to handle their new guest from there, -what _did_ one do with the huge, smelly, partially flayed man your best friend brought home to aid in your coup, anyway? Offering use of the showers and lovely plentiful soap might be a start, she thought- Amata grasped for anything she could as a distraction until she figured out something tactful to say. "Definitely. Uuuh, who's Reilly, anyway?"

Cort blinked and looked down at her chest. "Oh. Head of my mercenary company."

"You're..."

"A mercenary."

"You're not serious."

"No, all this exploding shit I'm wearing means I'm actually getting ready to be the centerfold in the first post-War issue of Guns and Bullets. Yes, I'm really a really-real mercenary." Cort straightened up primly and sniffed, dropping the sarcasm. Small as it was, she was rather proud of her association with the Rangers, people who had chosen her. "That's what you're supposed to do when you leave home. You get a job."

Amata had the good grace to flush. "I know there's more important things right now, and I sound like a silly little idiot, but everything you've experienced, ooh! And I'm just plain happy to see you."

Cort grinned. _Happy, oh, there's the happy. I found it, finally._ "Me too. Now come on, fill me in."

* * *

**Butch** pried his fingers off the desk and nonchalantly leaned against it as Cort and Amata bent their heads together, rambling about how many security guards were left, where the Overseer was, who was on their side, sitting on the fence, or trying to jump over it and kill them. He looked around the room, trying to be bored with everything and not succeeding, Cort's presence in the room pushing down on him like the proverbial elephant and just as impossible to ignore. Freddie and Christine were quietly playing with the dog, who was gently and quite disgustingly licking Christine's teary-vomity face clean, Susie was twiddling her thumbs and darting glances at the zomb..._ghoul_, who wasn't doing anything except standing next to the door and looking like he was actually dead. Butch couldn't even tell if he was breathing or not, the ugly bugger was so still. _Well, no competition there, at least. Not with that mug_. He took a deep breath of his own and shifted his stance, trying to look like he didn't give a shit and privately relieved that Cort was up for grabs. He was also twitchy as all hell. Nothing was happening, nothing going on to distract him from the fact that she was grabbable, and it was driving him crazy.

So was her ass. He couldn't even really see it, not under his old jacket, but it was _right there_. And he didn't know who had cut it, but her hair was approaching fantastic, even with the helmet-head. It was nice to know he would have employment opportunities for his most excellent barbering skills, once he made it up to the surface. It would be really nice to get up to something else with Cort, and apparently standing around looking suave wasn't cutting it. Talking wouldn't work, he knew from experience that once those two started blatting, they could block out just about anything he said, and he would rather cut off his own balls before flat out saying he liked her, even though he was positive that would definitely get her attention. Along with everyone else's, most of who would stare at him like he was some kind of touchy-feely wuss. _Just fuck that noise, right in the piehole_. No, more direct actions would be required; proper, manly actions to make his intentions clear. Butch puffed out a breath, making the curl on his forehead fluff around. _Well, if I'm going to make some shit happen, I might as well start making that shit happen. Crappy diem, and all that._

One thing he had never been afraid of doing was to jump in, whether it was the right thing or the right time or completely, thunderously not. He thought this was definitely right. Nevermind that they had spent half their lives torturing each other, Cort was now the coolest chick in here. The very far back of his brain also quietly admitted through the fog of hormones that she was also the only one that had bothered to give him the time of day. There had even been that drunken fumbling they had gotten up to after her sixteenth birthday, not that it had gotten the chance to go anywhere past punching, swearing and then giggling at each other, James finding them too soon for anything good to happen. Come to think of it, her Dad hated _him_, and his Mom hated _her_, so really, it made sense all around.

Swaggering over towards the two girls, he was completely oblivious to anything else now that he had found a straight streak of resolve in his bent up reasoning and acted on it, including the pair of chalky eyes suddenly tracking his movements. Reaching the desired distance, he cocked his head, curled his lip in the perfect macho smile, and then did something wonderfully boyish, the worst thing he could have done, worse than slapping a hand on the back of her pants and copping a feel like he had planned to do, feeling suddenly too shy to try doing that.

Butch reached out, buried his hand in Cort's fluffy hair, and pulled.


	38. You Don't See Me, Standing Right Here

_Holy frickin' errors, Fanfiction. I've been trying to tweak some things for what seems like weeks now! BIG thank yous to _Callx0fxPuberty_ for telling me how to get around that damn thing. And thanks much for the new reviews/favs and alerts, folks! Here and on the two recent oneshots. If any of you guys are thinking about writing, write! I almost never started, and well. ;) And for those of you who ask if I've read your fic, I do on occasion, if it's in the fandoms I follow, except for Fallout fanfic. I won't be reading any of it until I finish writing my own, it helps to keep my versions of the characters and all that junk clear in my head. I've bookmarked you all in a little folder, though. ;)  
_

* * *

**Finally** feeling somewhat comfortable after finding someone who still acted they way they normally had in her old life, and more exasperated than hurt, Cort protested loudly but with no real malice; it wasn't the first time she had had her hair yanked on by the leather-bound jerk. "Butch, stop, _stoppit_!" Feeling the pressure on her scalp disappear immediately, she turned in surprise, which swiftly ramped up into panic. "Holy crackers, you actually listened to m-_Charon_!" The big merc had smashed Butch face first into the wall behind him without warning, one hand gripping the back of his neck, the other pulling the one that had been in her hair so far up his back his own two hands nearly met. Cort managed to get his name out one more time before half the room started scrambling, reaching for their senses or whatever weapons they had found or fashioned for themselves, and she whipped her pistol out as Dogmeat started raising his hackles. "Don't any of you just even _dare_." _Ah jeeze, ah jeeze, what the hell just happened. _

Cort never drew attention to the rather bizarre fixation the ghoul had on her hair, not wanting him to think it was something wrong. It wasn't strictly _normal_, but then normal had more or less defenestrated itself when she left the Vault. Honestly, she wasn't quite sure what it was to him aside from very important; it wasn't a sexual fetish, or overly precious(it didn't mean anything to him whatsoever when she had Snowflake chop it off), but ever since he had gotten involved with her, his need to play with it for comfort had been there. She was now resoundingly sure of his opinion on other people daring to give it the same treatment he did.

Confident that Cort could handle the pathetic gaggle behind him and feeling a strange, panicked sort of fury, Charon kept his attention on Butch, snarling into his ear. "You keep your _fucking_ hands _off_ my girl."

"Your _what_! Hey man, leggo! I didn't mean nothin', it won't happen again, swear!"

"No, it won't." Charon fumed, his temper burning so high it was almost out of control. It shouldn't have happened at all, once he noticed the little shit swaggering over to Cort. Next time, he would be more proactive. This time, he wasn't going to wait and let things spool out after someone had pawed her uninvited. This time, he was going to do what she had given permission for in Rivet City; snap every bone in Butch's hand. Then his arm, his shoulder, his neck. He would break _everything_.

Charon started squeezing.

Things might have gone permanently downhill for everyone concerned if Andy hadn't chosen that particular moment to dismember Bea Armstrong. The arterial blood slapping the window of the back room proved to be a fantastic, unifying distraction, and hearing Cort's terrorized shriek mingled in with the others diverted Charon's attention immediately.

"_CHARON_! IT'S BEA, YOU HAVE TO SAVE BEA!" Dropping Butch like a sack of greasy potatoes, Charon was across the room in an instant, shotgun in hand and slapping the door trigger to the surgical bay before anyone could blink. Andy, his robin's egg blue paint splattered liberally with Bea's red, turned chummily towards him as it opened, waving his buzzsaw in emphasis to his voice.

"Ah, another patie-"

Half of Andy's top chassis blew away before he could finish, and Charon dropped to a crouch as the mortally wounded robot spun in place, arms whirling in a blur over his head. He fired again, this time into the exhaust vents, tucking into himself entirely as Andy exploded up in a spray of shrapnel, bits of it that didn't lodge in the ceiling pattering down all around him. Standing, he turned back to report after a cursory glance at the table and its reduced contents, flicking bits of plastic and metal off of himself as every weapon in the room aside from his and Cort's promptly disappeared. Cort made to dart past him as soon as he stopped before her, and he shook his head, leaning to block her. "No. Robot took her leg off." He continued as she opened her mouth. "All of it, Cort. You can't do anything, she's gone."

"What? No, no, she can't be, no, _nonono_-"

Charon cut her off again as she started babbling a string of denials, making his voice clipped and harsh. "Cort. _Stop_ it."

"Oh." Cort sniffed once, then hauled herself back together, forcing herself to ignore the quiet sobbing about Bea coming from the others. "Butch, don't touch me again, or I'll punch your lights out. Amata, if there's anything else you want to talk about before I go see your father, let's hear it, time's a-wasting."

Amata pulled herself up from where she had dropped to the floor when Andy exploded while Butch silently jittered over to sit behind the desk on the floor. "Oh you bet there's stuff I want to talk about." She whipped her head to Charon, hastily slapping loose strands of hair out of her face and jabbing a finger in his direction. "You, you stay _right_ there where everyone can see you." Cort sighed, lolled her head back and followed as Amata hustled out of the clinic and partway down the hall.

Deciding that Cort would probably like to keep everyone still alive on what was supposed to be nominally her side in that condition, Charon took up a tidy position next to the door that kept him fully visible and deterred absolutely everyone from even thinking about leaving the clinic. God only knew what they would run into in their dubious state if they were allowed to bolt; he was pretty sure he could get at least one to piss themselves right now if he sneezed too hard. There was also the chance that some of them could go as punch-drunk as Cort did if they were allowed to get rolling and degenerate the entire situation into a battle royale made up of slaphappy Pip-Boy-swinging maniacs. Now there was an intriguing, migraine-inducing thought.

As soon as Cort had made it to Amata's chosen spot, the other girl practically pounced on her, spitting her words out in a loud, outraged whisper. "Do you very much mind telling me just what the hell all that was about? Just what the holy heck did you bring down here?"

Feeling Dogmeat press soothingly against her leg, the animal having obediently followed when she separated herself from Charon, Cort managed to reply mildly. "I brought a professional soldier, my partner, with me, is _who_."

"A professional _lunatic_, maybe. He tried to rip Butch's arm off!"

"And then he turned right around and tried to save Bea. Besides, Butch had that coming for years. I would've stopped him right away if all you wieners hadn't gone and flown off your collective handle." Cort patiently waited as Amata paced, one hand compulsively smoothing her messy bun as the other gripped her temples.

At a loss for a response to this for the moment, not quite sure what to do as a leader considering everything she was trying to process(Butch _was_ an ass, the ghoul did try to save Bea, and he obliterated Andy in less time than it took to clap her hands; that could be useful, very useful when Security was trying to shoot you), Amata bypassed that role and went straight into the familiar territory of best friend. "What did he mean, you're his girl?"

Cort rolled her eyes. _Here we go. Nobody ever wants to focus on the bigger picture, nooo, it's all about what's going on between the sheets_. "Come on, you know exactly what he meant. When I said he was my partner, I meant in the biblical, not just business sense."

Instantly everyone in the clinic, who had been able to hear every hissed word clearly as it echoed down the metal corridor, flipped their eyes back to Charon, who absently ignored the attention and continued trying to fish stray bits of Andy's guts out of the back of his armour, neatly tucking any slips of wire away in his pockets for Wadsworth as he went.

Amata leaned in towards her. "So, you're...why _him_?"

Cort twisted Dogmeat's bandanna and tried to lean her temper into a state of calm. "Why _not_ him, Amata? Hung up on how unfortunately horrific you think he looks?"

"No! No, it's not that." Amata winced as Cort looked at her blandly. "Okay, well so maybe part of that. I'm not going to try and say I'm not at least a little shallow, but that's not all of it. I mean. You said there were lots of things up there?"

"Yes."

"Including, uhm, other...people?"

Cort got what she was indelicately trying to get at. "Yes, there are non-ghouls up there. Tons of them, with hair and skin and multiple type-defining psychoses, thirty-one freakin' flavours of humanity."

Still burning away with morbid curiosity and burgeoning concern, even with the knowledge it would probably send her through the thin ice she was treading on, Amata kept going. "Aaand you picked him?"

"_Yes_! And I was not lacking for options, either. There's tons of guys up there."

Both girls left in the clinic strained forward at this, while Amata leaned back in confusion.

"I don't...why?"

Cort shrugged defensively, not wanting to delve into the unique dynamic of her relationship with Charon. "We, ah, work together. It just made sense. I love him." She felt her face start to burn as Amata suddenly looked pitying. "Look, what makes it your beeswax, anyway?"

It's just...he's so _cruel_, Cort. Even to you. Don't you see it?"

"_What_?" She barked out, affronted. "He's not cruel to me. And it's hard to be nice to people when they don't give you the courtesy of treating you like a human being." She flapped an arm back down the hall, waving her hand in emphasis. "Christine woofed her freaking cookies!"

Christine blushed at this and mouthed an apology towards Charon. His mind now racing just as furiously as the others in the room after that particular set of comments, Charon shrugged dismissively. It hadn't been the worst first reaction to him by far.

"Well, he acts like you're his property, talking to you like you're some _thing_, it's not right." Amata sputtered and repeated herself, grasping at the only other objection available, just as unable to keep quiet at what she thought was going on as she was to flat out ask if her friend was being abused. "And he nearly wrenched Butch's arm off!"

Cort snorted. If anyone could be said to be someone's property, then Charon was hers, hook, line and contract. "Again, Butch had it coming, for years. Look, if someone topside goes after you like that, it means something totally different, Amata; keep in mind he had me by the _head_. It's literally and figuratively a whole new world up there, and you can't show any weakness. Charon's just looking out for me." She left out that she was, in her opinion, more than capable of fighting off any attackers after her bits, wanting to paint the big ghoul in the light of a protector she needed, a position he fit ably and she knew he needed to feel secure in. _Keeping me safe makes him feel safe. So what if he's kinda brusque about it. _ Cort didn't allow herself to even think about whether or not she was capable of keeping herself together without him.

"You mean..."

"I mean he's basically kept me from being raped, murdered, violated and eaten...well, eaten entirely, anyway, not necessarily in that order. There's nuts running around up there that would make new holes in you to do it in." _He's kept me from going nuts and making holes too, there's a hole in me but it's filling _up _not closing over_-

She winced as the thought slipped out, trying to keep from thinking about it only making her think even more. Amata thankfully took it as a reaction to what she had said, too distracted as her responsibilities crashed through to the forefront.

"Oh, _God_. I said people could go out there. I've been _encouraging_ it."

Cort sighed, feeling half remorseful, half justified over the way Amata now looked; pale, sweaty and shaking rather like an off-balance washing machine. A little bit of fear for the outside world would be good for everyone in the Vault, but terrified wouldn't benefit anyone, especially herself. _Calm, calm, everyone calm outside makes me calm on the inside. Oh, I want to go home_. "Look, once I get back from dealing with Alphonse we can sit down and have a talk, a real honest-to-God official debriefing, and I'll tell you everything I know. You know you can't stay in here forever. There are good people, too. There's towns, and a little city, even, with sheriffs and _good_ security officers who run things there, like Gomez. Two cities, really, if you count the Citadel. The town, Megaton, is barely an hour's walk from here."

Amata slumped. That wasn't so bad then, but the bad there was sounded terrible. Before all they had to think about facing was an irradiated desert with giant ankle-biting roaches you needed to stomp. Now, she had to figure out how to work psychopaths into everything. And just how were you supposed to stomp the psychopaths when half of your people ran from the billy-be-damned roaches? Amata didn't know about everyone else, but she was already more than tired of dealing with people going bonkers. She was tired of a lot. "Oh, just, oh golly. What'll I tell everyone?"

Cort snorted down a laugh, her lips twitching. "Uhm. You really don't need to tell them anything."

"Yes I do, I can't make this kind of decision without them, I won't be like my father." Nerves completely frayed and seeing Cort snigger again, she snapped out crossly. "And just what the heck is so funny?"

"Amata, you do know that everyone in the clinic can listen to us no matter how we talk, given the acoustics of this hall, right? That's the reason Dad left the door open half the time. You can hear everything right down to the corner."

"You're not serious."

Cort raised an eyebrow and whispered quietly. "Butch wears hot pink butt-floss."

"_SHUTTUP_! I do _not_!"

Amata briefly buried her face in both hands as Susie busted out laughing. "Oh God."

Cort reached out and patted her on the shoulder. "Look, it's not that bad. You're going to get a head start, since I already did all the trailblazing, huh? Now let's get back in there so I can get going."

"What are you going to do about my father? Don't hurt him, please. He really thinks he's doing what's best for all of us."

_Yeah, try giving Jonas that line, see what he thinks of it._ She shook her head and started back to the clinic. "I can't promise I won't. If he tries to hurt me..."

"Please, please don't. He's still my father, even if everyone here is against him. You know what it's like. _I_ know what it's like now."

Cort sighed, stopping just inside the door to the clinic, suddenly too heartsick to be amused at how everyone was now scrupulously looking at anything but her and Amata. "Amata, you really, really do not. I need to talk to Charon first, and then I'll go. All of you should stay here until I get back."

"Alright."

Cort gestured to Charon as soon as the other girl was across the room and dealing with everyone else who had instantly clustered around her, the big ghoul obediently coming over and leaning down to listen as she quietly gave him instructions. "I want you to stay here with them. They're more likely to shoot themselves in the foot if anything happens and there's no one to mind them."

He stared at her, completely non-plussed. "You're joking."

"Do I look like I am? Look, I need someone to protect them, and taking you with me is a bad idea. Everyone I'm probably going to run into on this jag are happily entrenched in _really_ hating my guts, not just detesting me, and if I'm going to have any chance of talking them down well, if you're with me..." Cort broke off and turned her head aside and bent down to dig in her pack as she flushed, feeling shameful.

"They'll freak like little fucking pansies and start trying to blow our collective heads off, then I'll blow _their_ heads off which will result in you getting pissed, quite fucking illogically, with me." Charon grumped and punned in an attempt to make them both feel better as Cort pulled out a scrap of paper and started scribbling with a beat-up pencil. There was no telling what state she could end up in without him there to prevent it. "I don't need either headache."

"That was still lousy."

"I try."

"I'll have Dogmeat with me. And they're all pretty pathetic. I'm sorry."

Charon started pointedly at the dog while addressing her. "Don't be sorry. Just don't be stupid."

"I try." Finished with her hasty sketching, she handed the scrap to him. "Here. Showing is easier than telling. It's the entire layout of the Vault."

Charon studied it intently, taking particular note of the areas he hadn't seen. "Smaller than I would have thought."

Cort nodded. "Some sections were sealed off indefinitely as the population dropped to supposedly save resources. I think it just made it easier for the Overseers to keep an eye on everyone. I labelled everything, including where people usually are, where Amata says some of them should be, and where I'll be going. Give me an hour, then do what you think is best."

She stood up on her tiptoes as Charon leaned forward to let her press her cheek to his, the ghoul using the opportunity to give the dog at her feet another 'don't fuck this up' glare. Slapping her helmet back on when she was finished and grabbing up her repeater, she turned and went down the hall without looking back, Dogmeat trailing behind her.


	39. Nice to Meet Your Reluctance

_Aww, thanks for the awesome new reviews folks! Nice to see new readers too!_

* * *

**Cort** made her way back through the Vault, working her fingers in and out of Dogmeat's bandanna as she walked along, using the contact as an anchor. So far, there was no-one around to confront her, the people she had met having quit the rooms they were in.

Things weren't going well even with that lucky break. Ever since she had reentered 101 she had felt a surreal sense of disconnection, mainly prompted by the method with which she left her old home. She had been terrified and terrorized during her escape, and Cort still couldn't recall everything that had happened; only half-remembered the things that she could. Her clearest memories before she had woken up screaming on a cliff face outside of Springvale were of going to bed with everything normal, everything as it had been the day before, stretching back into a comfortable haze of years. Coming back, part of her mind had expected the Vault to be as it had been, and nothing at all was.

Passing through the hallways, everything felt familiar and wrong at the same time, like someone had snuck into her home while she was out running around and replaced everything with an exact duplicate, a perversion that she would be able to detect if she could just turn her head fast enough to catch them in the act. Good old memories were clear in her head, but the bad new ones, the things she could only suspect at were shoving around underneath, making her feel like that dirty substituting sonofabitch was breathing down the back of her neck. Waiting for her to slip. Inching closer to make sure she did. Unable to stand it, Cort whipped her head around to check and make sure there really wasn't anyone waiting in ambush, staring down the corridor. It was entirely devoid of life, something that was horrible for its own set of reasons. She balled up the loose tails of the bandanna, then let her hand fall idle as she rambled. "Everything's too empty, Dogmeat. too empty, too small, it's so small in here. Everyone should be suffocating. Maybe we are."

None of this was the worst part. The worst part, the most horrible thing of all, was that she couldn't decide which version of herself she was supposed to be, a Vault dweller or a Wastelander, and the sickening realization that she could be both. She felt like the antithesis to herself, something whose existence should cancel itself out. "That makes better sense. I might be no one at all. Everything about me being here was a lie, so who am I?" Cort started as a cold nose suddenly jabbed into her slack hand and looked down. "Oh. I'm your Momma, aren't I." Dogmeat looked back up at her and whuffed in agreement. "And I shouldn't be acting like a nervous Nancy, but get us moving so we can do our work and get back before they drive Charon crazy." Another whuff, a grin. "Right then. Let's go. I want to kill something."

* * *

**After** a curt explanation to Amata of just why he was still hanging around, the girl having taken a few moments to notice he had remained, Charon had stationed himself half in and out of the door to the clinic for both tactical and personal reasons. Since Cort had left, nearly every single one of the Vault kids had been looking at him with a mixture of undisguised pity and extremely poorly disguised curiosity, and the continued parallels he was seeing in them with Cort was driving him totally up the wall. It was making him feel uneasy about wanting to hate the pasty little asswipes, and that pissed him off even more that being left to babysit them. At least it was giving him uninterrupted time to think, although as always, he wasn't sure if he wanted it. Charon sighed to himself. _Fuck. I don't understand._ For the first time in a long time, possibly ever, he was actually somewhat ashamed of his socially abrasive behaviour.

He had heard Amata's outraged rant against it, -_everyone_ had, the sloppy twit-, and while irritated at the girl's nosiness into his and Cort's personal affairs, he was also somewhat chastened by it. Cort was not property, Cort was not a _thing_. Considering his own history of being treated as something with sub-human status, even when he still was human, the last thing he wanted to do was give this impression, that he thought she was some bit of chattel, particularly with the dominant position she actually held over him. It was a reprehensible thing for anyone to think. But he had behaved in such a way that Amata assumed _he_ thought so. Charon rolled his shoulders, worrying about it further.

Amata also thought he was cruel to her. It wasn't as offensive as her other claim, but it was definitely unsettling. Charon certainly didn't think he was; she was eminently valuable, important, loved. Cort had never complained about the way he treated her, at least not seriously, but he was also well aware that she was remarkably tolerant of him. She _understood_. But he also knew he had accidentally hurt her on numerous occasions. He shifted his stance slightly, suddenly feeling guilty. It seemed he was _always_ managing to hurt her. From the way she kept twitching her shoulders under her armour, he knew there were bruises on them from the last bout of frustrated shaking he had subjected her to after the rash stupidity she had displayed the night before, left by him holding her too tightly. Was that wrong? She never told him it was wrong, only accepted it and acted properly chastened. But then she never told him that he was doing _anything_ wrong. _Fuck. A few months ago and that sort of thing would have driven you mental. It's not like I'm doing it on purpose. And she doesn't hurt...no._

She _had _hurt him, a total of twice, not counting the emotional upheavals; neither of which he decided had invalidated the contract since he had initiated both responses as a retaliation for his actions. There was also the fact he hadn't wanted the agreement with her to be null and void. He hadn't wanted to lose her, couldn't allow himself to, and worked with ambiguous edges of this part of his indentured servitude to keep it that way. _I never said what kind or how much physical violence it would take to break it._

The first happened when he had laid a hand on her to stop her from getting to James' corpse, something she clearly desired, and directly afterwards, when he had been holding her against her will in the Taft Tunnels. After he had suffocated her to avoid receiving an order. Charon let his eyes go out of focus, staring into nothing and himself at the same time. _If you're going to tally it the fuck up, make sure you get it all_. Cutting up the side of her neck in his haste. Hauling her into the floor on the outskirts of Tenpenny Tower. Ripping out part of her hair when he panicked. Shaking her at the Purifier, at the house, at a dozen places along the way whenever she did something stupid, something that scared him to death; he hurt her in payment for his fear. She had even let him punish her for it. He had told her father and himself that he wouldn't, then did it anyway. _I wasn't made for this._

If he had been alone, Charon would have allowed himself to shudder and snap his head around, wanting to throw off the surge of doubt. Not able to, it felt like the motion was careening around inside his head and chest instead, knocking things loose. He hated it. Doubt was a nasty, wormy thing that had been a part of him for a very long time, haunting him at every turn. Needing to block it out, he again latched onto the fact that Cort never reprimanded him for any of his actions, finding it only half-worked. _She always forgives me, even when I don't deserve it. She says I don't mean it, and I don't, but that doesn't fucking make it right, you undisciplined, clumsy, scared little shit._

For the first time since leaving the Purifier, Charon found himself desperately wanting to be punished, anything to take the stain he was feeling on himself off. Cort would get angry and refuse if he requested that...but she _would_ tell him how he was supposed to handle this if he asked for help instead. She would probably be fucking ecstatic at that, especially since not bottling things up meant that she wouldn't have to deal with another damned breakdown on his part, and it was so much easier to do that now. To let go and ask. That would work; if she was his contract now, whatever she said would work. She would know what to do. It would fix things. Charon slowly let his shoulders drop and relaxed against the door jamb.

Now, the next issue, not terribly important since he had acted within the confines of his orders, but enough of an aberration to notice and warrant further reflection. Why had he lost control so badly over Butch? The boy was no match for any of them, and his reaction to what he had done to Cort had been grossly out of proportion. Charon ground his teeth, suppressing a sudden wince. There had been fear there, in _him_ before he rightly put some into Butch, and now there was pain so sharp it was almost excruciating. His head started pounding as he tried to puzzle it out. All he had planned to do was warn the kid off verbally when his hand started reaching out; just what the hell had happened when it actually made contact? Eddie hadn't prompted that reaction. Maybe because Butch was already associated with her. Charon let out a long breath through his nose as he kept worrying around the edges of the problem, looking for a way into it. Sweet _fuck_, but his head hurt.

* * *

**While** Charon was chasing himself in circles, the girls had formed a small one of their own in the far corner of the clinic to do more or less of the same. Amata was trying to be diplomatic, realizing the need to keep Cort and, well, whatever-he-was, happy and sorting out the mess her father had made outweighed her personal considerations. _It's not like I'm in a position to be picky_. If she could trust Cort enough to ask for help, she would have to trust that she was a big enough girl to make her own decisions, even if they seemed to be perfectly nutzo._ I'll ask what her Dad thinks of him when she comes back, that'll really give a hint about just what kind of person he really is. _"I guess it's normal? Cort says he's not really that mean, it's just harder for girls up there."

"Pft, like it's easy down here." Susie rolled her eyes as Christine quietly joined in.

"Well he looks plenty mean. He looks _terrib_-"

Amata gently but firmly cut her off. "_Stop_ it, Christine, it's not his fault. You're still just upset because you upchucked."

"Yeah, some welcome. How friendly would you feel if someone puked when they met you?"

"It wasn't her fault either, Susie. None of us exactly extended an olive branch at the get-go." That bit of mediation done, Amata hesitantly brought up a new thought, torn between justifying the violence and half wanting to, considering the target. If she didn't, she would have to address it as leader and try to bring some kind of censure against the ghoul, something she didn't even want to think about trying. Besides, it had been sort of nice to see DeLoria taken down a peg. "Maybe...maybe Butch made him nervous."

All of them turned as another country of thought made itself known. "How? He could probably take a dump bigger than Butch, lookit the size of him!"

Amata sighed._ If there's a prime argument to be had for needing to outcross future generations, this might be it. Now that you've had that thought, bite your tongue and try to be nice, meanie_. "Thanks for joining the conversation, Freddie, your contribution is stellar as always."

Freddie shuffled closer and joined the huddle, a happy smile spreading over his sweet face. "You're welcome!"

"Oh for Pete's-"

He scratched at the side of his nose, looking dimly thoughtful. "You might be kinda right, though. How easy would it be for him to ah, get girls looking like, um. It's probably pretty gosh darn hard to get girls to notice you." All three of them blinked in surprise as Freddie made a succinct elaboration on what Amata had been trying to say, then glanced at Charon as the boy continued on, oblivious. "If he has to act like that, I guess it's pretty hard to keep them, too. Guess there's competition."

Christine blanched. "That just proves it isn't safe up there."

Susie snorted. "Like it's safe in here, Christine. You didn't get all those shiners over the years from walking into doors, no matter what you say." She looked around at all of them, resolute. "I don't care what I have to face. I can deal with the consequences, _Cort's_ making out okay up there and she was a booky little ditz when she left. I want to _do_ something with my life before I settle down back here and start teaching, not head straight into becoming my mother." She stopped, looking thoughtful. "Maybe I could even do that out there, even start a sch-"

Amata cut in again, trying to steer the priority of the conversation back to where she thought it needed to be. "We need to get out if we want the _Vault _to stay viable, we all know this. You heard what Cort said, there's lots more norm..._regular_ people outside." She turned to Susie. "That's just as important as getting out to see things; we'll need to find other girls too; that should be even easier if boyfriends have to act like guard dogs, they'll want somewhere safe to have kids. There's only three of us and three boys left down here, and both of you are related to one of them."

Susie gave her a disgusted look. "Don't remind me."

Amata made a face. "You think I like knowing I'm the only option for him? I'm not even allowing myself to think it."

Christine wavered, still caught up on the particulars of Cort and Charon. "But _how_ does he think of her? We don't want to end up worse off..." Both of the other girls turned to Christine as she trailed off and stared at her hands, stalled up in twisting her fingers. "People can be nice even when they're hitting you, or 'protect' you just for themselves, not you. I want to know somebody up there is...better. If he is, then...if someone who looks and acts like...I really, really want to get out there but I don't want to help if-if..."

Susie let out a frustrated breath through her teeth as Amata coloured and remained silent while Christine stammered. The Overseer's kid was good at handling people, but not so good at handling what they could do to each other behind closed doors. Susie didn't think she did much better, but with Cort gone, she found herself taking up anything Amata left slack. "I'll take care of it." Amata shooting her a grateful look, Susie poked her head out of the little huddle and stared at the ghoul. "Hey. What is she to you, anyway."

* * *

**Jerked **out of his contemplations, Charon was somewhat relieved as he considered this completely new question being added to his pile, even though he wasn't sure how to answer it. _At least thinking about this doesn't hurt. Fuck. It's over, leave it alone, forget it. Forgetting it is better, you're supposed to do that anyway. Think about her instead. _ Her. Cort. He was slightly frustrated over just what he was supposed to call her, now. Employer seemed insufficient enough now to be insulting. Referring to her as his contract would confuse them, and was so personal it was nearly sacrosanct. He would not share that with these nosy idiots. Charon decided to go with something he thought would be flat, dry and simple without giving too much away. "Everything." He repressed a surge of annoyance as everyone in the room suddenly focused their full attention on him, openly staring again. _Oh, what the hell did I do now_.

"Do you..." Susie shot a quick glance at Christine, wondering how to phrase her next question without actually saying it, not wanting to humiliate her. "_...boss_ her around?"

"I advise. She gets the final say in all matters."

"She bosses _you_ around?"

_Not quite accurate, but fuck clarifying it_. "Yes."

At this, Butch finally reemerged and rejoined the group at large, crossing his arms over the top of the desk and snarking. If living with his drunk harpy of a mother had given him anything, it was the ability to be extremely resilient in the face of abuse, bouncing back like a puffed up little ball after being thrown around like one with only a slightly longer recovery period. "So just what the hell _do_ you do for her, stand around and look pretty?"

Looking down his non-existent nose at him, Charon snarked back. "It is my honourable _duty_ to protect and fight for her. I identify and eliminate any existing or _potential_ threats."

Christine spoke up, breathless. "You've killed for her?" Charon stared at Butch as he answered a question he could finally reply to wholeheartedly.

"Multiple times."

Amata now, challenging. "Would you die for her?"

And again. "Without hesitation."

Christine whispered to Susie and hugged herself. "Just like a fairy tale."

Charon quirked an eyebrow as the girls around him sighed in unison, then drew it down to join the other in a frown as all of them started looking at him in a way that made him want to vacate the general area. Not inclined or able to retreat from the weird little buggers, he settled for visibly shutting himself down in an attempt to curtail any further conversation, unsure of what he had just done to instigate the shift. It didn't work. _Big damn surprise there, Vault dwellers who can't shut up._ He resigned himself to having to suffer through at least a partial conversation as one of them finally worked up half a nerve and came over, checking her hand and then holding it out.

"Hello, we didn't get introduced. My name is Susie."

He grunted something noncommittal and didn't reciprocate the gesture, continuing to look down the hall and hoping the blonde would go away. Instead, she seemed to take it in stride, reaching up to thoughtfully twirl her ponytail in one hand before speaking again.

"Can I ask you something?"

He repeated the grunt, not wanting to give her a direct no. Cort wouldn't expect him to do anything he didn't want to, including speak to anyone, but the little hole-dwelling shits were important to her, and they now thought he was the social equivalent of a...well, himself, so he had decided he would have to play nice; at least as nice as he could stand to be, anyway. Watching her fiddle around in the corner of his eye, he waited for her to spit out the question that was obviously burning a patch off her ass.

"Does it hurt?"

Charon huffed out a sigh and rolled his eyes over to her, already knowing the answer to his own question before he asked it in return, which didn't necessarily mean he was going to make it easy for her by just answering directly. "Does what hurt."

"Being a, ah, ghoul." Susie mouthed the word out like it was an unfamiliar bit of food.

"No, it fucking _tickles_." He suppressed a spike of irritation with himself as she flinched from being snapped at. _Fucking hell, someone get me out of this nightmare. It's like having sand in my asscrack down here._ Sighing, he answered the girl again in a more civil fashion. "No, it doesn't hurt."

"What does it feel like?"

"What does being like _this_ physically feel like, or what do_ I _feel like physically." He got a small bit of good humour back and held in a laugh as she suddenly turned beet red and started stammering, confirming she had been asking the former and reminding him yet again of Cort. "Where I don't have skin, I feel next to nothing. Where I do, it doesn't feel like anything in particular. Ask yourself that question, same answer." He blinked, surprised with himself for being so verbally effusive, then swore under his breath. More of them were drifting over, apparently encouraged into boldness by Susie's success. Amata had come up, still eyeing him somewhat suspiciously, as well as the brunette and the boy he hadn't tried to push through a wall. They _all_ looked like they were just kids, which was, he belatedly realized, how he had been thinking of them. He felt reality take another jag to the left, recalling that they were all kitty corner to Cort in age, some even older than she was. Seven months on the surface had seemingly aged her an equivalent in years. Thinking about things he definitely did not want to focus on, he directed his attention back to the little group as they started positing their questions, which typically focused on the exact thing he wanted to avoid.

"Are you really over two hundred?"

"No. Not personally."

"But Cort said-"

The brunette someone had obviously been tuning up on started twisting her hands again as she cut herself off, and Charon responded more gently, not wanting to flood her into shutting down. She had been brave enough to put forth the first query after Susie, after all. "Most but not every ghoul is from before the War."

"Oh. How old are you?"

"Probably in my nineties. It gets hard to keep track sometimes." He looked up from her, annoyed as Butch cut in.

"You look pretty strong for some old fart."

Amata spun around and cut back, arms akimbo. Things were going too well to mess up. "Go back to hiding under the desk, Butch. Make it with a dust bunny."

"Eat me, Mutt-face."

Nettled, Charon levelled another glare at Butch, struggling to modulate his language. "I was thirty-one when I stopped aging. I will remain in peak physical condition indefinitely, unlike you." He let himself lose slightly, and gave an evil grin. "Have fun going downhill and decrepit, shitstain. Bet you go bald."

Seeing an opening while a flushing Butch hotly scrambled for a retort and everyone else digested this, Amata's lips twitching as she thought, Freddie jumped in. "So you don't get old? Just, uhhh... really flak-"

"_Yes_."

"That is so _cool_! How old will you get, will you outlive all of-"

"Pick. Another. Topic."

"What? Why?"

"It's rude to ask about grownup's ages, nimrod." Amata elbowed Freddie before the ghoul could answer, scolding him in an overloud whisper.

Charon resisted the urge to grip his temples. _Grownup? Oh for fuck sakes._

"Oh. What kind of gun is that? It looks wicked cool."

Susie piped up again, intent. "Can you show us how to use the ones we have? Please?"

"Yeah, please?"

"...You want _me_ to teach you something." Charon blinked a few times, bemused as they responded with a chorus of cheerful affirmatives, even Christine joining in. Maybe talking wasn't going to be that bad, after all.


	40. Cages, Clashes and Clishmaclavers

_Thanks so much for the lovely new reviews, here and on my other stories! I have a surprise coming up for my regulars, although I suppose it's one for new people too. ;) _

* * *

**Even **without being able to hear him talking, Cort was fairly certain that whatever opinion Mister Mack had of and was currently trying to express to her was unflattering. She wasn't one hundred percent sure about the verbal content, the muffled state of his speech and energetic facial expressions getting rather in the way of how clear he was making himself, but the gestures he was making were coming through perfectly unhindered. Those were _definitely_ unflattering.

After following a maddeningly convoluted route through the corridors, backtracking, cross-wiring shorted out doors and even squeezing through piles of furniture at points, she had finally made it as far as the upper level of the atrium, the puzzle of finding her route thankfully helping to settle her down. Currently, she was peering over the railing with Dogmeat into the space below as Mack raged against the window that bordered his family's living space behind her, seemingly torn between shouting at her presence and actually coming out to do something about it. Cort snorted._ Good luck with that, buddy. God only knows how bogged up the hallways out the front of your quarters are. Not that you'll get to check them, anyway_. Mack had tried to do just that, making more than half a dozen attempts since she had appeared. Every time he went for the door, his wife Gloria would stop him, sobbing.

Having determined that Officer Taylor was nowhere in evidence, or anyone else for that matter who might end up putting a bullet in her rear on their way to missing the broad side of a barn, Cort turned to face the window across from her and idly watched that action drive the man through another set of hysterics. Cheerfully waving increased the effects. Clapping ramped him straight into the stratosphere. She inclined her head conversationally towards her dog as her mutual object of attention tried and failed to make an egress once more. "You know, I've never liked him. I'm only going to do this because I don't want to end up killing Susie's Dad. I don't want to kill any more of those down here." Dogmeat gave her an inquisitory whuff, Cort answering him as if it had been a direct question. "Well, to start with, he's a bigoted jerkoff. Then there's the familial issues. Susie turned out pretty okay, pretty darn tootin' okay, really, even though she was a total snot growing up. I really don't know if her being mean to me was because I was competition for boys and things or because of her father not liking mine, who knows. Probably a bit of both. Her brothers though; _wow_. If there was still a functioning medical establishment I could publish in, those two would net me at least half a dozen peer-reviewed papers. " She shot a speculative glance at Gloria. "I don't even want to think about what happened to let her let her sons turn out like that. Which is probably a large part of the problem. Go along to get along."

Cort started walking towards the window, stopping when she reached the glass, then began dragging a finger over it carefully, biting her lip in concentration as she swirled it in broad loops. This puzzled both Macks enough that they paused in their antics for a few seconds to watch. "If you haven't noticed, Momma doesn't tend to go along very well. Daddy must've been banking on me outmanoeuvring creeps like this guy until they kicked the bucket and then having too much clout for anyone else to make a dent in me. No wonder he was so happy when I got 'Vault Chaplain' on the G.O.A.T. You don't piss off your doctor and you don't piss on your priest. Even non-celibate female ones of an indiscriminate denomination. With Amata as Overseer, I would have been damn near invincible."

Making one long vertical drag, she licked her finger and quickly made a smeared dot on the glass below it to finish, then after returning to her previous position at the railing, drew her pistol and aimed it carefully. She rolled her eyes as Mack sneered at her and pantomimed the glass in front of him. "Yes, yes, I know it's bulletproof, you insufferable ass. Mmm. Wait." Cort smirked and reholstered the pistol, widening the expression as Mack instantly became wary, then reached back for her repeater, resuming her aiming posture with the long-barrelled gun instead. This was apparently enough of a novelty to make him worry a bit more, but not enough to move. Definitely not enough to make him back down in front of someone else. Gloria said something, and he snapped at her, then moved to stand directly in front of the window, behind her little smudge. "Perfect." Cort fired.

Moving so fast his ball cap flew off of his head, Mack flinched away as the .44 slug slapped into the glass with a loud whanging peal, leaving an ugly webbed crater behind as it ricocheted off into the depths of the empty room. Cort had her helmet off and was back at the window before he stood up, an incredulous look on his face, which only deepened as she bent in close and breathed heavily over the glass, coating it in a wide arc of condensation. She stepped back slightly and smirked again, looking pleased as punch. Mack, still half hunched over, glanced from the foggy patch to her and back again. Printed in big block letters, thoughtfully reversed so he could read it properly and the bullet scar now completing the punctuation perfectly, was a big cheerful 'BOO!', the ohs making up the eyes of a jaunty little smiley-face.

Watching his anger return as the message faded, Cort pressed her free hand against the window and licked up the glass before it could reach a full blaze, not breaking eye contact and still smiling as she finished, then mouthed for Mack to come out and play, shaping each word precisely to make sure he understood. She tapped on the glass towards Gloria, mouthed again. '_Her too. I can have fun with her, just like Stevie_.' Satisfied at how rattled he looked now and feeling much better because of it, she continued on her way before he could collect himself once more, chatting conspiratorially to Dogmeat as she cinched up her chin strap again. "Do you know why you don't piss off the doc or piss on that priest, honey?" A whuff. "Because they know _exactly_ how to get you. Body and soul. Mister Mack is very attached to Missus Mack, and will now be very invested in not letting her out of his sight. Gloria would probably tackle him if he even let it cross his mind at this point. I definitely won't have to worry about that slimebag getting into my hair later."

Cort wound way back into the tight confines of the corridors, intent on her first of two objectives. The rebels had made an abortive attempt to leave the Vault a few days earlier, led by Edwin Brotch, who had been dragged away by security after they were ambushed near the entrance. Cort didn't think he was dead, or at least hadn't died immediately; if he had been killed, she would have certainly tripped over his corpse on her way through the Vault the first time. Certainly nobody else had been picked up and tidied away. She supposed their old teacher being captured had been the final tipping point for Amata to send out her distress signal; after he had been gone, the only adult left with them had been silly, dotty Bea, poor cut up Bea who had told people's fortunes, who had written her terrible poetry for presents. Cort wondered who would tell Stanley his daughter was dead. Hoped someone had been thoughtful enough to wrap the body up before they did. With her dead, Brotch was also the last person left that Cort thought might treat her like the person she remembered being, and she desperately wanted to find him alive.

Coming up towards the security office, she lifted her Pip-Boy to check ahead and then stopped in her tracks as one of the two new blips that had appeared on her screen made itself known out loud.

"Too young, too young my ass. I could be out where the action is but no, left guarding two old farts. Keep an eye on things, Wilkins. Your job is important, Wilkins. Right, like there's actually going to be anyone coming up-" he cut off abruptly, and Cort rolled her eyes.

"Finally checked your Pip-Boy, huh, Wilkins." Feeling snappish and wanting to play, she waited, repeater held in an easy grip, not moving when he popped out after a space of a few seconds and goggled at her, his own pistol clenched in one hand.

"Holy _shit_."

"I'd prefer to think of myself as _hot_ shit, not holy." Cort readied herself to send a shot straight through his visor, wondering if the slug would rebound off the back of his helmet and make an even better hash of his head, then hesitated, watching him handle his own pistol. It was perfectly gripped, exactly like an instructive figure in a textbook, and somehow looked completely, hilariously pathetic. Seeing this, the way he kept unconsciously ticking the gun away from her own center of mass and back again, she felt the anxious hostility that had been riding her since she had left Charon dissipate. _Jesus, I've seen Protectrons that were more limber than this. This isn't combat, it's, it's a fish in a barrel. A _teacup_. No wonder I got out of here. Craaap, I can't shoot this twit! I may be a killer, but I won't be a murderer._

"You never should have left, kid. And now we'll make sure that nobody ever leaves aga-AAAGH!" He broke into a high screech as Cort sighed and shot through his right arm, his pistol falling from his nerveless hand to clatter on the floor an instant before she swung the stock of her rifle up into his groin. She shook her head as he crumpled, moved over to grab his handcuffs and then started to alternately shackle and scold him.

"Wilkins, you're like, barely three years older than I am, and your maturity level puts you under me by about, oh, _seven_ at the least. And sweet fucking mercy of fishsticks, if you want to shoot someone just up and damn well shoot them. I would take dodging a bullet over having to listen to another boilerplate speech about how you're going to make sure of _thiiis_, or end _meeee_, or hump bunnies for world domination or war bonds or _whatever_." Satisfied that he was sufficiently bound and hobbled, hand and foot, she pulled out a Stimpak and drove it into his badly bleeding arm. "You would not believe the amount of people I've been able to kill just because of their propensity for verbal posturing, just yap-yap-yap-yap-yap, on and on and on. Now where's Mister Brotch, in the cell?"

"I'm not telling you nothing." Wilkins glared up at her and spat, the efficacy of it somewhat mitigated by the visor conveniently blocking the path to Cort's face.

Trying not to laugh as he went from angry to positively apoplectic, staring through his own spittle, she considered making a comment on double-negatives, decided he wouldn't get it, and then gave him a vicious poke in the side of his gut, popping a rag into his mouth when he opened it in reflex. Finding him sufficiently muffled, she continued her own affable diatribe as she dragged him back into the office and out of sight from the hall. "Yeah, and I'll see for myself in two seconds when I look in the window. but you could have been at least a little polite in exchange for me not splatting your brains all over. Ingrate. Now, knowing you and your _fabulous_ capacity for retention in school, you probably wrote the password for it down, didn't you." Cort patted around his pockets as he squirmed, finding what she was after on the first try. "Yoink!"

Without sparing Wilkins another thought, she jumped up and raced over to the cell, breaking into an immediate and sunny smile before darting to the security terminal on the desk in the corner and started typing away. "He's there, he's there! Banged up, but there!" Hitting execute, she whirled and raced to the door, triggering it. "Mister Bro-_yeep_!"

"You want me out of here you bastards you're going to have to work for i-!"

Cort immediately sucked her head back out as a pair of doubled fists came sweeping down at her head, Brotch's accompanying war-cry sucking back up into his lungs as he suddenly found the barrel of a rifle jammed up under his chin. Cort winced and dropped it down, looking shamefaced.

"Sorry, sorry, reflex, but please don't do that again."

Brotch stared blankly at her for a moment before falling into shocked recognition. "What...what, just what..."

He trailed off and blinked in surprise as Cort broke into an immediate and sunny smile, unknowingly shifting her face into the much younger-looking one he was used to. "Mister Brotch!"

"Oh God, Cort." Shock turned into sorrow as he took in the scars over her arms, the disfigured ear, her hardened face. "What happened?"

Cort looked at the bruised cheek and fat lip he was sporting sympathetically, not understanding his bewildered sadness was for her. "I know, everything's gone to hell down here. I'm so sorry you had to go through all this. You're safe now though, huh?"

He gave her a guarded look. "You tell me."

"Well, I suppose you are at this particular moment. Definitely will be once you get back to the clinic."

Brotch straightened up like he had been electrified. "Oh God, the kids."

"All fine, they're fine. Bea...Bea's dead. Andy killed her."

"An...Andy _what_?" Seemingly unable to process this new level of lunacy, he stumbled over it to a new question. "Cort, how did you even get here? I never thought you'd be back!"

Seeing as he had been fighting alongside the reason for it, Cort thought it safe enough to fess up to the circumstances of her return. "Uhm, Amata sent for me this morning using the Vault distress signal."

'You stayed that close?"

"No, me being in range was pure luck. I just got home last night. I live in a town a little ways away."

Brotch raised his eyebrows as she gave a vague little wave towards the southeast part of the room, relaxing somewhat as he started getting intrigued. "An honest-to-God town? I bet that got Amata's motor running, if you told her." Glancing down as something shifted around, they almost hit his hairline as he finally noticed Dogmeat standing at her side. "Uh. Wow. I bet that did, too. Looks like you've been up to some things, young lady."

Cort almost collapsed into his calm demeanour, soaking it up like a balm. _Oh, thank you, thank you. _"Oh, you have absolutely _no _idea. Look, I'd love to tell you about everything, I-I need to tell you about everything, I need to tell _someone_," _Someone old, someone in the know, who knows and tells me,_ "But right now I'm on my way to see if I can get Alphonse running in the same gear as everyone else who still practices Earth logic down here. Are you fine to get back to the clinic?"

Nodding, he sorted through a dozen new questions that had just popped up in his head and forcibly pushed them aside for later, feeling that they could wait. "Before you go, I've been hearing some worrying things from the guards. Not much, just bits and pieces whenever they got pissed off enough to yell loud. I caught something about a raid they wanted to make, which I can only assume was aimed at Amata and the rest of us. There might be more about it on the security terminal."

Cort shrugged and jerked her head back towards the door. "Let's see." She returned to the terminal, Brotch joining after he had eyed Wilkins distastefully and then half-dragged, half-threw him into the cell by his feet, locking it up again and muttering on his way over.

"Asshole."

"No, assholes are actually good for something. Wilkins is the product of one. Here we are." Cort clicked on the most recent entry, started reading and promptly flooded over with rage. "They _are_ planning one. Midnight, go in, shoot two of them, whoever fights first, and cow the rest. So what if they lose a couple kids, they'll save the Vault. Fucking _bastards!_" She shoved back and started thinking furiously. The note had said Overseer didn't know about any of it, and if they weren't telling the 'softer' security guards, it was a safe bet that Gomez had no idea what was being planned; probably not Taylor, either. Cort thought that was more or less a blessing. If they were willing to make examples out of people's children, then putting an angry, possibly berserk Gomez or a waffling, upset Taylor somewhere 'convenient' wouldn't seem like much of a problem compared to that. Cort's problem was now having a fourth element on her plate to deal with. _Rebels, not-rebels, bystanders and now vigilantes, great. Lunatic tossed salad, is what I've got here. What's the best way to-wait. I've got it. Stop it where it started. _She whirled back to Brotch, not noticing as he flinched away from the look on her face. "Right, I'll kill them. I'll kill all of them, every last fucking one starting from the top down. Chief Officer, who's the new Chief?"

"Officer O'Brian." Brotch rushed on as she got an eerily intent expression he didn't much like the looks of. "Cort, there might be an easier way. If you can get the Overseer to listen to you, he should be able to stop them. They're all old enough that obeying the office is too ingrained for them not to."

She frowned, looking uncertain, still wanting to go to war. "You're old and you're not obeying."

"Thanks so much for that. I like to think I'm at least a little bit smarter than your average security grunt."

"Tiny bit."

"Ouch, Cort." He gave her a mock grimace, and she smiled. "Just listen to your teacher and try talking first, please and thank you? God only knows you're good at running your mouth off."

Cort settled, calming down under the pressure of her own form of social conditioning. It would be easier, if it worked, the Overseer really was where everything had started, and there was no telling who would get shot if she started hunting people down willy-nilly. _Cripes, I'll be happier when I get back outside. Killing things is so much simpler, nobody cares if I kill the bad things_. "Ouch, Mister Brotch. So before I go try to rearrange Alphonse's brains, what do you think of opening the Vault? What should everybody do?"

He sighed. "Most of everyone who wants to are just kids caught up with the idea of getting out into the world. I'm old enough to realize that we need to get out there if we just want to survive at this point. Not all of them really understand that just doing that alone will be an uphill battle." He paused, wanting to phrase things as delicately as possible. "It doesn't look like life out there is a cake walk."

"Not exactly pie and punch in here. I need to go. Are you _sure_ you make it back to the clinic on your own? Or do you need help?"

"I'm not _that_ old either, sassmouth." Brotch walked over to lean out into the hallway, checking either end of it before looking back, his expression almost wistful. "I guess the G.O.A.T. couldn't have predicted how you'd turn out, could it? Remind me to add a question about busting your teacher out of jail, if we ever get back to normal down here."

"I'll make it normal."

"I don't doubt you can."

Cort looked quickly down, fiddled with the sight on her rifle, then back up again just as fast. "Thanks. For still being nice to me. Thanks for not blaming everything on Dad."

Brotch reached out and gave her shoulder a firm squeeze. "None of this stupidity is you or your father's fault. It never could be. Now go show me how smart I know you are, and remember to watch yourself down here. I'll see you soon." He checked the hall again, looked back once more, and was gone.

Cort stood for a few minutes, puzzling things over as she listened to Wilkins thumping about, then looked at Dogmeat. "What am I forgetting."

Dogmeat whuffed and turned his head back, nipping at his shotgun shell pouch. Cort sucked her lips in as she suddenly remembered the third part of themselves and then squawked in alarm, eyes flying wide.

"Ah-oh, oh crapcrap_crap_! Weeell, uhm, meeting a ghoul can't be much harder than meeting _you_, can it? Not really?" Dogmeat snorted, and she winced. "Thanks a bunch, baby. You could lie to me, you know."

* * *

_Surprise is now! What, I wasn't going to say anything up there, you'd all scroll down to here. :P A few people have asked me if I'm going to write a fanfic for Fallout:NV. Yes, yes I am. I'm just not going to do it until I've **completely** finished my Fallout 3 fics, namely the trilogy I'm working on now, which has quite a bit to go, and Gerry, which won't be terribly long. I also need to PLAY F:NV, which would probably help. ;) I'm aiming to buy it in August, when it's too hot to do anything except hibernate in the basement and blow NPCs up, who will be at least twenty dollars cheaper by then.  
_

_I've been writing this story for a whole year now, and I can safely say I wouldn't have made it this far without you awesome readers; I never expected anyone to like my fooling around this much. This is why I decided to go ahead after I finish with this and do one for the next game. You guys have made it fun. All this isn't the surprise though, I've said it before. The surprise is the rough draft of the first chapter for the F:NV fic! As I said, I don't read Fallout fic right now, but I DO read descriptions to see what people are playing with. In terms of the Courier, not friggin' much on face value, just like what happened with the Lone Wanderer, which I found very disappointing once I read she/he could be any age at all. _

_So, I like to think that I can offer something at least a little new and avoid Sues. My Courier cobbled together in my head enough that I had to write her up and get her out until I'm ready to write her story, and she came out interesting enough that I wanted to share. Let her stake her claim, or however you'd like to put it. Hope you like!_

* * *

**Brown.** That was the first and only word that came to mind when Craig Boone thought of the Courier; she was brown all over. Brown eyes, brown skin and brown hair, all of her seemingly bleached or darkened by the harsh sun and just as ageless, brown dust ground so far into her hat and clothes and her old sprung cowboy boots that he wondered if they would just fall apart when she got around to cleaning them. _If_ she cleaned them. Even the Pip-Boy hugging her left forearm was coated up brown, although she maintained she wasn't a Vault dweller, just a second hand recipient of the rare tech. She could have been sixteen or sixty, and if she was either or anywhere in between, she wasn't telling and he wasn't about to ask.

He _had_ asked for her name, when she didn't supply one. It was good to know who someone was, just in case you had to hunt them down later, especially when they were an accomplice to a killing, and he didn't think '_brown_' would get him very damned far in the Mojave as a descriptive. She hadn't had one, a name, just the title. She was a paradox, of sorts; a person so completely, utterly nondescript that it was her anonymity that made her stand out to him. A faceless sea in a sea of faces, she had appeared out of the desert that morning, slipping in on the shimmer of a heat mirage to look for a man with a gun and finding a different one instead. She had found him, and then found someone else's name for him, seemingly pulling it from the nowhere place she had emerged from.

He had never quite met anyone who seemed to be so not there. She was sitting right in front of him, on the other side of Dinky's mouth, and still not there. Still very here and in his space, for someone who wasn't and shouldn't still be. Boone decided to move things, and her, along. _First things first_. "I'd like my hat back."He waited patiently as she slowly stepped back into herself and started fishing around in one of her pockets, pulling his NCR beret out after a moment's search. He caught it neatly when she tossed it. "How did you know it was her?"

She shifted to push up the wide brim of her own hat with one finger, her duster whispering with the movement. "Because you hired me to deliver the responsible party. I couldn't have brought back anyone else." There was still a splash of Jeannie May's blood up one cheek, dried enough to be a dull blotch instead of a shiny one. A droplet had made a line across her nose. Boone wondered if it was itchy. That had been something, the circumstances of it getting there. Not her agreeing to find the person who had sold his pregnant wife Carla off into slavery with the Legion, that had been business. _"You want me to deliver something,"_ She had said when he made his request, after a long moment spent in silent thought. _"Yes, I can surely do that. That's what I am."_ The blood getting up her face, though, _that_; that had been personal.

The Courier had left immediately afterwards, not appearing again until the middle of the night, Jeannie May Crawford in tow. She had stopped with the other woman on a pile of rubble directly in front of Dinky, inclining her head in polite conversation before sweeping her cowboy hat off to replace it with his beret, letting a long braid tumble out. He had slid his finger into the trigger guard then, had squeezed until there was barely a half-pound of pressure left to go and then stopped, staring in consternation at the Courier's own finger, held up towards him as a sign to wait while she leaned in and whispered to the woman who had destroyed his family. Whatever she had said, it must have been one hell of a thing. Boone thought he could guess what it had been.

Jeannie May had started violently, then again as the Courier suddenly chopped into her throat with the flat of one hand and then clapped it over her mouth before grabbing her by the back of the neck with the other, the attached digits looking like slim dislocated ghosts in the fingerless gloves she had on. She had looked up to him then and inclined her head, again with the same odd courtesy, holding the other woman's head still as the rest of her shuddered and flailed. He hadn't hesitated a second time, and she hadn't flinched when the top of Jeannie May's skull lifted off a foot from her own head, just dropped the body as its brains plopped down around her and came back up to Dinky's mouth, not saying a word. Boone jerked, pulling back out of himself. She was saying words now. "What?"

The Courier gave him a patient look and repeated herself. "I said, so what will you do now?"

"I don't know. I won't stay here. I don't see much point in anything now, aside from killing legionaries." Boone had a rare surge of curiosity, seeing her eyes narrow. "You've had a run-in with them."

"Those fellows dressed up like bastardized Romans. Stringing people up so much it looks like they're trying to host a damned Jesus impersonator convention. Yeah, I met 'em up yonder in Nipton. At least that's the first time I _remember_ meeting them." She drew her mouth into a small, hard line. "I won't lie, there's other things on my plate at the moment. But I don't think killing every one of those sumbitches we can find along the way would overload it." Boone saw her teeth flash briefly, surfacing like the white belly of a fish in muddy water, and didn't mistake it for the smile it wasn't. "You seem like you'd be pretty keen on that. I'll be honest too; I just flat-out need someone like you around."

Boone barked out a blunt question, instantly suspicious. "Why me?"

She let out a long breath through her nose, not answering right away. "I helped you do this, so I suppose you can keep a secret for me." She took her hat off and held it by the brim, slowly rotating it. "I don't shoot people."

He eyed the pale slash running up from her eyebrow and into her hairline. "They apparently don't extend you the same consideration."

"You misunderstand. I try to and succeed in killing people just fine. Varmints too, for that matter. I don't shoot them because I can't do a good enough job of it, not with any consistency. Not unless I get lucky." She tapped the jagged scar on her forehead, then replaced her hat. "Once they're far enough away, I don't see them where they're supposed to be. Once they're close enough, they have a tendency to interfere with my aim."

"And they don't interfere with you killing them otherwise?"

She sniffed and nodded, standing up. "Oh, they do, they do at that. But trying to knock one of these out of the way isn't quite like slapping a gun barrel. They're also more kindly about giving me a second chance to misbehave."

Boone raised an eyebrow a fraction of an inch as she spread her duster open. Strapped to her hips in heavy leather holsters that were obviously hand-made for them, were a pair of wicked-looking throwing hatchets. Sharing space with those were sheathed combat knives. Running up her chest in another specially sewn vest were more knives, of the throwing and switchblade varieties, the former over her chest and belly and the latter above her hips. Peeking out of the gloom and looking almost like an afterthought, there was a sawed-off shotgun on her right side, tucked up in a modified shoulder rig. Taking in the dull gleam of well-oiled metal, winking like sullen stars set in an indifferent sky, and the slim leather straps that disappeared around to her hidden back, Boone got the distinct impression that there were quite a few more sharp objects sequestered in places he couldn't see.

"You can't shoot straight and you've got throwing weapons. Real swift of you."

She patted each in turn, seemingly oblivious to the sarcasm. "This type of hatchet does more damage. Mental and physical. People get nervy waiting for it to come flying, make mistakes based on what they expect me to do. Knives without much of a handle are harder to pull out, if they're sticking in you."

"And the knives with handles?"

She pointed to the combat knives. "Useful. Sturdy. Never know when I might need them, so I've got them." Then to the switchblades. "Easy to hide. Impossible to pull out when you bury it and then snap the handle off." Letting the duster fall back into place, the flaps of leather once again hiding away everything, she gave him a pointed look, hands on her hips. "Twenty questions over with? You coming or not."

Boone looked directly into her face, considering things. The Courier tilted her hat back and met him stare for stare, both sets of eyes cold with starlight. With the duster covering everything, she would seem fairly innocuous to the untrained or eager eye, an unarmed woman in a loose coat. She was pretty, in a raw-boned sort of way, which was more than enough. She would make for perfect Legion bait. Even better if she could turn them into it instead. "Yes. What do I call you."

"Courier."

"That's not a name."

"No?" She shrugged. "Call me what you want, then. I'll answer to whatever you choose. I really couldn't give a damn either way."

"Are you going to tell me how you knew it was Jeannie May?"

"Ask yourself if you want me to. I will if you ask me again."

Boone decided he didn't want to. Found he wanted to know something else. "This a business relationship, or personal?"

Her teeth flashed again, and her voice lashed out in the first real show of emotion he had seen her offer up. "_Everything_ about this business is personal."

He thought for a short moment. Decided he didn't dislike her on principle. Remembered that blood turned brown when it dried up and ground in and got old. "Charlie."

Her mouth ticced in something that could have been either a grimace or a smile. "Why Charlie?"

"Had a dog named that."

"Good dog?"

"Good enough."

Charlie let out a long, silent breath, her face going peaceful as she seemed to reach a decision and quietly echoed him. "Good enough. Let's go."


	41. Revelations and Remonstrations

**Cort** slowed slightly as she walked through the Mainframe, the red-tinted room almost pristine compared to the other sections of the Vault she had gone through. She stopped to stare at a faded black smear on the floor, felt something unpleasant edging around the boundaries of her memory, and vehemently decided not to try and remember just why she had ended up with Floyd's favourite sunglasses, balling her hand up in Dogmeat's ruff. "It doesn't matter, not now, no. I've got other people to concern myself with, don't I."

Truthfully, Cort hadn't given the Overseer much thought, aside from the occasional absent curse when something triggered a memory of the Vault; she hadn't thought she would ever see him again. Even after she had reentered 101, she had been too caught up in other things to pay much attention to something extra. Now, an inch away from confronting him, she wasn't quite sure what to think. Keeping her temper seemed like a good place to start; as much as she hated Alphonse, she loved Amata more. Figuring out how her father would have handled the situation and doing that seemed like an even better one. Cort decided that James probably wouldn't have begun by waffling outside the damn door, and finding herself bolstered by this knowledge, barrelled through the Almodovar's quarters and into the Overseer's office without any further ado.

He was still standing exactly where she had seen him last, over by the circular window in behind his massive circular desk, the flicking monitors on the wall making soft shadows over everything. Cort managed to get as far as opening her mouth before he suddenly turned and started talking.

"Well look who's come crawling back, slinking in like a teen missing curfew. Given up looking for Daddy, done with the ruins of the Wasteland, are you?" Alphonse gave her a distasteful look. "You're certainly not done with the dust. I suppose you thought you could just slip back in, once Amata came calling." He smiled as Cort started. "That's right, I know. I don't miss anything that goes in or out of this Vault. Now leave, and take that mutated brute with you. You have no future here. You're tainted."

Caught off guard to begin with, this familiar and very hated line of exchange let her find her footing. "Tainted? Oh, you have _no_ idea. And nobody has much of a future with you trying to stop Amata and the others. You _definitely_ won't if you talk like that again."

Alphonse raised his eyebrows slightly as she snarled. "My my, temper temper. That would be where you're wrong, young lady. By locking down this Vault, I'm protecting its future. in fact, I was protecting its future when I had to make those unpleasant choices the night you and your father abandoned us. I only wish I could have stopped him before he left." He turned back to the window, mildly continuing. "If anyone's to blame for the unpleasantness, it's him."

"My father didn't beat anyone to death, didn't let Security run around shooting people! People like the Holdens and Jonas were never a threat, don't you _dare_ try to justify your murders and lies. Not to me."

"Spoken like someone who's never had to make difficult decisions. Like someone who's never had to lead. Jonas was leaving with your father. Their departure would lead to others leaving as well. And before you know it, half of the Vault would be gone. And then our home -the last safe, pure bastion of humanity- would be reduced to a lonely handful of aging hold-outs, too few to continue."

"And now more than half _is_ gone." Cort tucked her rifle under her arm and clapped slowly. "Bravo, excellent plan. You haven't protected anyone, you've helped to destroy them."

Alphonse continued blithely on, entirely unperturbed. "I'm afraid you're the shortsighted one, here. I'm simply keeping them safe and untouched by the war above. the real danger are the rebels and insurgents who insist on risking all of our lives just to die out there in the Wastes. If they weren't trying to throw our lives away like that, we could go back to the peaceful life we once had. Everyone would be happy again."

"The 'war above' was over in less than a _day_, you-" Cort stopped, digging her nails into her ungloved palm. _Calm, calm, I will stay calm._ "All you had to do was keep quiet and let us leave. We could have gone and things-"

"_No_! You were both essential to my plans." Gathering himself after the small outburst, he smoothed his hands over his white hair and started walking back and forth, talking as he went. "The Vault wasn't always sealed against the surface, you know this now, better than everyone. It was always open to the Overseers, and those they chose to bring into the fold. I knew from my parents that this had to change. Wandering freely left us open to far too many risks, made people want more. I made it my life's goal to restore purity to the simple purpose of our lives."

"This isn't purity, this is a lie! _All_ of this is a lie."

He laughed, shaking his head as she spread her arms. "You really don't have any inkling of just how close you are, do you? Your father knew, and he was willing to accept it in exchange for your safety, once you were in." His face grew distant, and he started sounding almost mournful. "But he just couldn't let his silly surface dream go. Just had to drag Jonas into it. Spoil my perfect plans, the perfection I was orchestrating for Amata. You were such a large part of them, too."

Cort swallowed, not liking this, not wanting to know but unable to help herself. "What plans."

He returned to the window and looked through it, appearing to examine things only he could see in the empty room as he talked. "I started making them after I saw how high you were testing in school, how well you did in the clinic, always helping your father with every little thing. You even have his damnable way with people, bending them like reeds in the wind without even trying to make them go your way. Effortless. This is why you've been unable to nettle me even with all the fine effort you've been putting into it, by the way; after years of dealing with _him_, you're practically a cake walk. Stiff upper lip, though! Maybe one day you'll live up to Daddy's shining manipulative example."

He spared her a superior little smile at this, unaware or uncaring that it had brought Cort within an inch of attacking him. "Once I saw that, I had to make sure that you were entirely loyal to Amata. It was easy enough, for a pair of lonely little girls with important parents, the two of you just superior enough to be above and outside the others. She would have been unassailable with you behind her, instead of splitting everything apart like your father did to me. I was getting so close, if he had just stayed long enough for me to have both of you girls married off, Amata to Paul Junior, and you to Butch, of course-"

Totally poleaxed at this revelation, Cort nearly dropped her rifle and screeched, Dogmeat raising his hackles and snarling as her voice scaled up. "_WHAT_?"

He shrugged, seemingly unconcerned with the dog circling her feet. "It made perfect sense. The Overseer in control of Security by proxy, since Paul Junior would follow his father, of course, and you were the only one who could ever really control that reprobate DeLoria. He needed to be contained somehow, he had too much influence over the other boys, and boys become men. I tried to teach Amata how to handle people like him, but.." He sighed. "Under your judicious hen-pecking, Butch could have turned into something productive, or at least been kept well out of the way. Since Ellen doesn't have any idea who his father was, you were the perfect genetic choice too. The only one, really. I don't think he would have been faithful to anyone else, and I couldn't risk him getting accidentally..._acquainted_ with someone as close as a half-sibling." Alphonse heaved another melancholy sigh, the distaste on his face falling away into regret. "You all had your perfect little parts to play. Such a shame that I couldn't have kept hold of you, that some of our more enthusiastic security guards couldn't have-"

Cort cut him off again, so disgusted and outraged by what he was telling her at this point she was made physically ill by it. "This...this is just, just fucked! Six ways from Sunday _fucked_! I was _never _some puppet for you to use, none of us are! Did-did you think hunting me like an animal would make me want to _let_ you?"

Alphonse gave her a non-plussed look over his shoulder. "Well, I had to salvage some part of it. I knew once you had been given time and the right sort of encouragement, you would have come around; so would the others, once I had made an example of you. Cort, the perfect citizen. That's what your father meant you to do, you know. He made sure you could replace him and keep things going. But I knew you, I do. I know all of you. If he left, you would follow, and open up a flood. I couldn't let him have his dream and destroy mine; why should I? I couldn't let him make my life meaningless, take that away from Amata. I had to make you the villains, not me, not me. All of us are nothing more than players, down here. Don't you see now what you threw away? I made the perfect part for you. So my little girl could have _my_ dream." He finally turned back to her, hands spread and smiling beatifically, his eyes blank behind it. "That wasn't so bad, was it? Your father would see."

"Oh, Mother _Mary_." Overwhelmed with a surge of pity and sick horror, Cort slowly shook her head and pressed a hand to her mouth, the enormity of his plans and the state of the man who had tried to build her in as a part of it crashing in on her together. She stared at him, seeing nothing but a shell and empty sadness. Whatever he had been, all Alphonse was now was a broken old man clinging to power that he no longer had. "You don't know all of us. If you did before, you definitely don't anymore. Security's planning to colour outside your pretty lines again. They're making a raid on everyone down in the clinic tonight, it's in their terminal, you can check. Shoot the first two who fight, and put everyone else down. Tell me, who do you think would fight first?"

Alphonse's expression grew troubled at this, his eyes clearing slightly. "Amata. No."

Cort walked over, talking in slow, measured tones. "Yes, Amata. So she really needs to take charge of things, doesn't she. New blood for the Vault. You can advise her, make sure she succeeds."

He answered her, sounding more confident as he kept speaking. "Yes. Yes, she will. I will."

Pointing to his terminal under the security monitors with one hand, she gestured with the other until he went to it and joined him. "Make it official then, everything neat and tidy and just so." She watched him to make sure he did, make sure he wasn't trying some last effort at shamming her as the dark-light, dark-light flickering of the monitors strafed over both their faces, moving through their unending monochromatic loops.

"There. Done. Just so."

"Good." Cort reached over to lock the terminal out, just in case he decided to have a change of heart, and froze, staring at it. "Wait." Cort nudged him aside, swiftly ran down the list and opened one of the most recent reports, then promptly felt the bottom fall out of her guts. "The Enclave contacted the Vault. They contacted the Vault, and tried to get in." Her chest tightened up as she put extra pieces of information together with that on the terminal. _Oh God, they were looking for it. Rufus saw them searching, they were searching for here._

"Oh, yes, them." Alphonse fell silent as she let out a small spate of hiccups, waiting politely until she choked them back into a barking laugh. When she was finished, he shook his head disapprovingly and continued. "I didn't trust them."

Cort grabbed his arm in a brutal squeeze and brought her face so close to his her visor steamed up from his breath. "Don't. Don't _ever_ trust them, you hear me? Keep them out." She sniffed, thinking furiously. "It was an absolutely excellent leadership decision on your part, one you should make sure Amata upholds."

"Why thank you, Cortenay." He stood there for a few moments, staring at the bank of monitors as Cort picked over her options, trying to figure out what to do with him and the errant bits of security running around now that things had been turned in Amata's favour, then spoke up again, almost absently. "There are guards going towards the clinic right now."

Her head snapped up, fixing on the screen he was looking at. "What? No, no _no_, the terminal entry said midnight, what would make them change-" She stopped. "Oh, crap. I did."

"Oh my yes, I would expect so. Officer Taylor found Chief O'Brian a little while after meeting you and that brute. He seemed rather upset."

"You, you stay here, until Amata comes to get you, alright? There's probably stuff in here you need to go over with her, right? Stay." Cort tore out of the office, not waiting to see if he agreed.

Alphonse quietly turned off the terminal and went to sit at his desk, waiting patiently for his daughter to come find him, thinking slow, meditative thoughts and speaking slow, meditative words. "I should have gotten Cortenay to read everything. She would have understood, then. She would have seen all the parts. Why we're really here." He turned his face to the darkened window again, away from the softly flicking monitors, away from Cort and her dog running from screen to screen. "I had to do something, I did the right thing. Someone had to save us all. None of this was ever meant to."

* * *

**Charon** was caught halfway between amusement and frustration, and the nagging want to figure out just which emotion should win the little race they were holding in his head. "Now. The clip's out and you cleared the chamber. Is it still loaded."

"Nnuh..." Susie caught herself as he glared at her. "Uh, it's always loaded."

"What do you do with a loaded gun."

"Nothing, unless you're ready to kill with it."

"How do you get ready to kill with it."

"Clean it, check it, aim it, commit to it."

"Strip it down again. Christine's turn." He returned the main body of his attention to the hallway as the quiet girl stepped up to the desk the others were clustered around and took the 10mm from Susie, who slid the empty clip back in before handing it over. Charon decided to give her ample cover for the activity, not knowing how she would perform under group scrutiny. From the twitchy way she seemed to handle everything else, he thought not well. "Freddie. Four main parts."

"Frame, barrel, slide...holy shit."

Charon sighed. _Well, he almost made it. Closer than last time_. Cort not being much of a rote learner, she had told him to quiz her on things when he taught her, preferring hints that put things in context when she forgot something instead of the simple repetition he had started with. _'I'm a people who puzzles, not a parrot who parodies,' _she had said. Admittedly, he found it enjoyable enough when she did it to him to help him figure things out, not that anything could be less so than the way he had been schooled, and he had decided to stick with it here, seeing that there were so many similarities between her and the others. For the most part, it seemed to be working well. "No, Freddie. The last one has something to do with the slide-"

Turning back again, Charon shut his mouth and blinked, staring at the desk and the cause of Freddie's derailment. The pistol was laid out neatly on the blotter, Christine having stripped it in a matter of seconds. "Christine, tell everyone why you could do that so fast. Please make a particular effort to try and drill it through Butch and Amata's skulls." He held in a snort as both singled-out parties, who had been dragging noticeably behind everyone else, found themselves in a puzzle, elated the other had been scolded and stuck on just how to rub it in without nailing themselves in the process.

Christine hitched her shoulders in a small shrug. "I just did what you told us to do."

"Good. You go first for the next step."

Butch piped up, irritated. "Hey, she was able to watch-"

Charon cut him off with a snap, then calmly returned to Christine. "Then you won't mind a similar advantage in going last this time. Now shut your damn trap and pay attention. What do you do next, Christine."

"Clean everything."

"How often."

"Every time you use it, and periodically if you've stored it."

"Why."

"Because you can't do anything with a dirt-clogged piece of shit."

He felt amused again hearing the timid brunette curse, even if she was just repeating what he had told them to. He had spent the last forty minutes going from grudging tolerance at teaching the little group to actual enjoyment, a welcome distraction as the time he had been instructed to wait ticked by and surprisingly satisfying. Considering his plan if Cort hadn't appeared by the time a full hour had elapsed was to seal the clinic and go after her, the idea of making the occupants of it even slightly more effective at killing things seemed all the better. At the very least, they would last longer as a distraction while he went after his smaller half.

He let his mind drift in the quiet lull as Christine studiously cleaned the pistol, methodically going through the different areas of the Vault Cort had outlined on the map. Heads bent over the desk, none of the others in the room noticed when he suddenly jerked his own up to stare down the hall. Someone was moving up the stairs, the small echoes carrying almost as well as the girl's whispers had earlier. He moved into the hall slightly, listening. One person. Not Cort, not trying to be particularly careful. Tired, noisy, dragging.

Charon calmly watched Christine work for a moment, giving nothing away, then turned back and slowly brought his shotgun to his shoulder at the exact same moment a dark-skinned man emerged into view down the hall. Spotting what was at the other end after taking a few steps, he skidded to a halt and stared at the ghoul open-mouthed, his eyes flicking away as the girls laughed in the background. Charon rasped out, regaining his attention. "Name. Now."

Finally twigging to something being up, Amata came over to join him, peeking around his side. "Charon? What is it? Oh, _Mister Brotch_!"

"Amata?" The now identified Edwin Brotch let his eyes flick from one to the other, not daring to move the rest of himself and stupidly repeating her. "What is it?"

Charon shot a hand out and grabbed the scruff of Amata's suit as she tried to dodge past him, the barrel of his shotgun not wavering an iota as he roughly hauled her back. "No."

"Let me go!" Amata started twisting, trying to break herself free, then yelped as Charon easily lifted her clear of the floor, giving her a little shake and repeating himself before addressing Brotch again as he made to move for the girl.

"_No_. You, Brotch, stay there. Move and I'll splatter you to the ceiling. Amata, check your Pip-Boy."

"What? Why?"

The ghoul gave her a withering look. "Because it would be really fucking nice to know if someone is right around the corner using him as bait."

"Uh, oh. No, no there's not. There's just hi-_oof_!" Amata staggered as her feet regained the floor, Charon releasing her and standing down as soon as he saw the contents of the screen for himself.

"Right. Get him in here."

Brotch still didn't move, his eyes continuing to waver from ghoul to girl. "Amata?"

"It's all right, he's a friend of Cort's, he's here to protect us. He's just got a kind of radiation sickness, it's not catching." Charon snorted at this, moving farther into the hall to make room through the door, and Amata quailed a little as Brotch hesitated, sounding desperate. "_Please _get in here Mister Brotch, it's safer than out there. I don't want to lose anyone else."

The sight of three more of his old students popping their heads out from around the door jamb finally got him moving, and he came down the hall in a jagged walk, not taking his eyes off of Charon until he was in the clinic and swarmed by everyone. Once the doorway was clear, Charon resumed his position, eyes fixed on the hall as he listened to the kids babbling and Brotch's responses. Cort was fine. Yes, the dog too. Yes, she had been going to the Overseer's office. He turned back to face the room as the other man's tone of voice changed, sounding serious instead of comforting.

"Amata, I need to tell you something. Security is planning a raid on us all tonight."

"When?"

"Midnight, so..." He brought up his Pip-Boy, Charon answering before he could.

"Just over eight hours." Everyone went quiet, thinking, giving the big ghoul ample opportunity to hear someone else coming up the stairs. Several not-Cort, not-tired someones who were trying to be quiet and not keeping the sound of handling their weapons quiet enough. _Of fucking course_. "How many guards are attacking us."

Tired and a little rattled, Brotch got caught up on the vagaries of future and present tense. "You mean will be? At least half a dozen, I can't be sure. Why..." He trailed off as Charon lifted his shotgun again, comprehension dawning on Amata's face a second later, and she reached over to grab her old teacher's hand.

"Oh, jellybeans. They're _early_."

Sliding briefly back into cover, Charon snapped out instructions. "All of you get down, as low as you can. NOW!" All of them scattered except for Christine, who was too terrified to move.

Not wanting to miss anything, Butch popped up from where he had dived behind the desk to watch what was happening, swearing when he spotted her instead. "Aw, _shitkittens_!" He hedged, swore again, then darted out and yanked her over the top, wedging her into the knee well as she crashed to the floor and stuffing himself in front, yelling at the top of his lungs. "_This shit right here better get me to second base again, Cort_!"

His attention narrowed down to the task at hand, Charon swung fully around the jamb and fired as two security guards came rushing out from behind the shelf at the far end, the shot going wild as Amata suddenly latched onto his arm at the same instant and pulled. Peppered with deflected buckshot, both guards retreated with pained yells as Charon wrenched his arm loose, coming within a bare inch of driving the stock of his gun straight back into Amata's face before he stopped himself, rounding on her instead. "The _fuck_ do you think you're DOING?"

Amata stared up at him, half-crazed with panic and oblivious to how close she had come to getting her skull shattered. "You can't kill them!"

Absolutely furious, he roared in response. "_WHAT_?"

"Too many people have died already, killing more isn't the answer!"

She reached for his arm again, and Charon nearly lost it. If it had been anyone else trying to get in the way of carrying out his orders, he would have ended them outright. The only thing that had stopped him was the fact that he had been specifically directed to safeguard her and the others. "I answer to Cort, _not_ you. Do not interfere _again_."

Amata stood up on the balls of her feet, matching him glare for glare. "Cort is here to help _me_, is doing what _I_ say, and _I_ say enough people are dead."

Charon let out a savage, inarticulate snarl and looked away, suddenly finding himself stuck between two possible interpretations of what Cort could want and unable to resolve the problem. Either way, he couldn't keep up a fight on either side of himself without risking the people in the clinic, and he was now positive he was going to have to answer to her for something in any event. He slung his shotgun over his shoulder and swore, deciding on the course of action that he could rectify later, if he had to. "Fucking _perfect_. Get to the back of the room with the others and shut the fuck up."

"You remember what I-" Amata staggered back and paled as Charon flat out screamed into her face.

"_DO IT_!" He turned without another thought towards her, checked to make sure the hall was still clear and then started digging through Cort's pack, dumping everything out as he searched for the Stealth Boy she always carried, wondering how much using it would compound the trouble he would shortly be in and finding he was too enraged to care. She would be more pissed off if he got himself shot running into an unknown number of opponents than if he burnt the rare tech up to prevent it. _Fuck it. If I'm going to be in for it, I might as well be in neck deep. Best thing I can do now is just get this whole shitshow the hell over with before she comes back and wades in from the other end_. Finally pulling what he was searching for from the mess, Charon slapped it on his arm in case he needed it, ripped two pulse grenades from his belt and sent both of them clattering down the hall, startled voices floating up in question before being forcibly cut off.

"What the heck are-"

"Is that a-"

He was up and heading down the hall the instant the muffled explosions went off, around the corner and driving his fist into a screeching throat the next, spinning in place to yank a pistol loose from someone's waving hand and using it to cripple another, breaking the bones in his second target's wrist as he brought it down in a blur. Ducking as the others reacted, he took stock of the rest. Five in total. Five was manageable, and he tore into them with a single-minded fervour. He was everywhere, punching and twisting away from the half-blinded guards at the top of the stairs, grabbing one by the neck and hurling them back into the hall with a crunch when they nearly went toppling down the whole flight of them, snaking an arm out to capture another when he tried to run. One by one they fell, choking and gasping, bleeding from broken noses and puking from kicked guts, Charon using them to beat his frustrations out as he brought them down.

Stamping down the urge to pound the last guard into a pulp and finding noone else left to brutalize, Charon let him drop, carefully removed the unused Stealth-Boy and hooked it onto his belt, gave one of the retching lumps on the floor another shot to the ribs as it tried to roll over and then yelled down the hall, still mad as hell. "_Amata_! You wanted this fucking mess, now get out here and tie it the _fuck_ up! It's your damned problem now."

* * *

_Thanks so much for all the lovely new reviews for the last chapter, and the draft I posted. :) I'm glad people enjoyed the little peek. There's another tiny little very, very rough character drabble here that didn't fit into it, just because you guys were so sweet. ;)_ _Last look until I play NV into oblivion!  
_

* * *

**Arcade** glanced up from his seat at the dying coals of their campfire as Charlie struggled up from the nest she had made for herself in the brush and rammed her hat back onto her head, welcoming the distraction from his own problems. She was the first one up after last night's shenanigans, and he sincerely hoped she would be the only one for a while. She missed nothing but was no more apt to pry than Boone at what she saw or heard, but gave him a feeling of serene privacy along with her indifferent attitude instead of a prickly, sullen one, and he found himself starting to value her odd sort of company. He gave her a slow wink over the rim of his glasses as she finally untangled herself, twigs snapping off and tagging along for the ride as she jerked her braid loose. "Aren't we pretty this morning."

"Fuck you." She smiled slightly as she hitched over, taking some of the sting out of the words. "I think I got nailed."

"Hey, I'm not that fast."

She raised an eyebrow at him, the smile turning puckish. "That's not what he said."

Arcade's head shot up, the affable distant look he normally kept on his face replaced by pure shock.

"What, you just get poked in the nethers?" Charlie looked blank for a moment, then snorted in amusement, slapping her thigh. "Wish I'd planned that on purpose. Would have been a helluva lot more satisfying. Take a look at my back? Think it must be buckshot, if I managed to overlook it for this long. It's out of my reach." She made a face. "If it's a bloatfly sticker again, I don't even _want_ to think. Don't you dare tell me if it is, just go on and gouge it the hell out."

He made no effort to get up as she finally made her way to his side, holding himself very still and keeping his voice so quiet it was barely more than a whisper. "How did you find out."

Charlie graced him with a wry grin. "Arcade, odd as it may seem with the amnesia and all, I do know I'm not old enough for men to stop grabbing a look at m'goods when they can, and young enough to notice when they don't. Even under circumstances like that. If _Boone_ can't help it, well..." She trailed off, her face falling. "Unless you think I'm ugly as sin."

"What? No, no it's not that, you look fine, I mean fine for _me_. Wait, no! I mean-" He cut off and scowled as her eyes positively twinkled. "You're screwing with me, aren't you."

"Honey, last time I checked I don't equip the kind of knife you need for that."

"Shut up and strip."

"My, my. If you ever decide to cross back into my lane of the highway, I'd advise that you work on your signalling first, no lady will ever let you merge in with that attitude." She peeled her shirt off with uncaring efficiency and stood with her arms akimbo, everything out and breezing in the wind since her only bra had been torn irreparably the night before. She gave him yet another grin as his attention remained firmly on her face, this one positively shit-eating. "No peeking, now. I'll get the wrong kind of ideas about you."

He gave her a hesitant look, staring into her eyes, wondering just what ideas about him were behind them. "What are you going to do now?"

She tipped up her hat brim and sniffed, giving him a bland one back. "Right this very moment I believe I'm announcing how damned chilly it is this morning. Next I'll be giving Boone another conniption fit, if you keep leaving me out as an impromptu thermometer."

Arcade rolled his eyes dramatically skyward and twirled a finger as he stood up, gesturing for her to turn her back towards the slanted sunlight, privately relieved that Charlie was herself in all things; serene, aware and uncaring. "You're an absolutely horrible person."

Charlie turned away before he could see her face harden up, keeping her voice as light as the hands gliding over her skin as her heart turned bitter. "Arcade, you have no idea. Just none at all."


	42. Getting Right Into, Under Your Skin

_Know what the most not fabulous thing in the world is? Wordpad eating your last save after you've done all your #$%ing editing__**.**__ Very fabulous is all you for the new reviews and faves!_

* * *

**Charon** was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. Cort pelted up and straight into him, gasping out a question as she wrapped her arms tightly around his waist. "Security?"

"Taken care of, but I need to talk to you about how." He fell in behind as she let go and started hurrying towards the clinic.

"Everyone's all right?"

"Yes, but there was a prob-" Charon clenched his jaw as Amata interrupted, the girl pouncing on Cort as soon as she entered the room.

"My father?"

"He's waiting in his office. You're officially Overseer now. How did things go here? It looks like you had, uh..." She turned back to Charon as he made a disgusted noise, the ghoul looking pissed and more than a little uncomfortable. Cort squinted at him thoughtfully as he rolled his shoulders, then raised her eyebrows as she glanced back up to his face, surprised. _He's not just uncomfortable, he's _ashamed_. What the heck?_ "Okay, what _did_ you have, along with the blood and puke all over the floor back there?"

"A damn near clusterfuck, is what."

Cort took off her helmet, sighing. "Ah, jeeze. Tell me."

Charon jerked his chin in Amata's direction. "She interfered when I attempted to carry out my orders. As a result, I am unclear if I followed them correctly."

"Oookay. So elaborate on that a bit? As in completely." She kept her face calm as Charon wiped any visible emotion out of himself and reported what had happened in her absence, relaying everything in short, clipped sentences; his brief spate of instruction, Brotch arriving, the raid by security(all of whom were now tied up in the surgical bay, very much worse for wear), and the quandary Amata's response to his initial reaction had put him in. Cort sighed and pinched her nose, wondering where to start with this added to the absolute plethora of issues she had to deal with. Watching him straighten up even further in her peripheral vision, she decided that validating and reassuring the ghoul was first on the list, and turned to Amata. "Just what the hell did you think you were doing, interfering with his orders? That's inexcusable."

Charon relaxed at this and finally removed his own helmet, Amata promptly bristling up in his place. "You're worried about some silly arbitrary instructions? He was going to kill them all!"

Cort blinked, entirely non-plussed. "And?"

"'_And_?' Cort, what's wrong with you? Too many people down here have died already. I can't let any more of them go, not if we're going to keep the Vault alive!"

Cort boiled over. "The Vault? You're worried about the fucking _Vault_ surviving? They were coming here to _kill_ you! They _would've_ killed you if I hadn't left Charon here, and now you're really stuck with a Goddamned rat's nest." She rubbed a hand over her mouth, thinking rapidly, wishing she hadn't let Brotch talk her out of running the guards down. It was clear at this point that there would have been no chance Alphonse could have ordered them off of it. "I don't know what you're going to do now, but the best thing you could have done was let Charon do the job I left him to do as he saw fit to do it. You'll probably have to end up either killing them anyway, or kicking them out before they do it to you first. If they bucked against the Overseer once, there's a good chance they'll do it again."

She shook her head. "I won't stoop to that level, I won't make the same mistakes my father did."

"Well now you just might have to." Cort snarled. "You asked me to come clean this mess up for you and that's what I tried to do. It's far too late for you to get cold feet, Amata."

Amata crossed her arms, resolute. "Well it's too late for you to have any say about the future of the Vault."

The rest of the room froze as the two stared each other down, not daring to move. After a full minute that felt like a year to everyone else, Cort relaxed. "Oh, fine then. It's your bed, jump on in and get cozy. I'm washing my hands of the whole affair." Turning, she grabbed up her pack. "I'm going to go get cleaned up, then come back and debrief you when I can do it without wanting to strangle the everliving _shit_ out of you. There's an awful lot about the surface that all of you need to know, and I'm not leaving until you do. If I can't do anything to keep you from being stupid down here, I can at least make an effort at it topside. There's worse things than security guards after _all_ of us. A Vault suit or a Pip-Boy, shit, the state of our skin and _teeth_ is as good as wearing a target up there right now." Taking a breath, she slipped out of her harsh tone into a conversational one. "Oh, and on that note; _my _Dad's _dead_, Amata. Thanks for asking."

Amata stared at the doorway open-mouthed as Cort stormed out and headed for the Living Quarters with Charon and the dog close behind, everyone except Butch looking at absolutely anything but her. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the desk with a disgusted expression, shaking his head.

"Well _way_ to go, Mutt-face."

* * *

**"Charon**, what would you have done to anyone else interfering with what I told you to do."

"Killed them outright."

"Thank you for not doing that in this case." Cort paused outside the Cafeteria, feeling she needed to say a bit more. "I would have understood if you did. I would have been...I can't even _begin_ to describe how upset I would have been. But once I calmed down, I would have understood. That said, you did exactly the right thing. Thank you again."

"You're welcome." Charon hesitated, then picked her up to give her a brief, tight hug before setting her back down, not saying anything else. Cort smiled.

"Better?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"Good." She started walking again, shaking her head as she went back to puzzling over what to do about the mutinous elements in the Vault, raking herself over the fact that she was toeing a line very close to the one Alphonse had from the other side, and on top of everything else trying not to think about how mad Amata had just made her, only succeeding partway. "Ooh, just, just _fuckbugs_! How can she be such a moron? How the hell am I going to handle this, now? I'll be damned if I'm going to stick around here and babysit, I have already had quite _enough_ xenophobia in my life, thank you very kindly. This is the last place I ever wanted to come to again, I only came for her, and now she turns around and shoots herself in the Goddamned foot. I don't know how Dad was able to stand it for as long as he did without going bonkers, I don't know why, down here where it's supposed to be civilized, that there's less chance of words working than outside in the United States of Free-for-all _fucking_ Anarchy." Cort nearly spat the last words out as she ran out of breath.

"You'll figure it out." His own immediate issues dealt with and now having the time to do so with a casual eye, Charon looked around curiously as they walked, peering though windows and into open rooms, noting details he would have ignored previously. "How did your father gain entry into this shitcan anyway."

"Short answer? Because their doctor had died. Christ, I wonder how he got in, banging on the door in Morse, or maybe he had a radio or...I don't know. We never talked about this. Or a lot of other things, I guess." She blinked a few times, her face feeling hot. "Also because he had me. I was probably even a better bargaining chip than his skill set. Don't I ever know that for a fact now." She saw Charon raise an eyebrow up in question at this and felt her mouth quirk, wondering how he would take this particular bit of information. "Well, the gene pool in here is about as stagnant as the one in front of the Lincoln Memorial, to put it bluntly. Birth rates in the Vault have been dropping for at least the last century, and I'm from a larger population that wasn't bottlenecked quite so badly. Half the monitors in here are always blinking shit about the importance of having children, perpetuating the Vault, etcetera, so forth. Sometimes I wonder if that's the reason why I wanted them so much." She paused long enough to point out one of the thin scrolling bars as they came up alongside it, and then brushed a hand over her belly, the cynical smile on her face not matching the soft caress. "Nature, nurture, who knows, doesn't matter. Either way, I used to be prime breeding stock, don't you know."

Both eyebrows now came down and wrenched inwards, Charon's face caught between what she thought was moral outrage and something she couldn't identify past being extremely uncomfortable, something which was confirmed when he answered. "You're not a fucking Brahmin cow. He should have sequestered you elsewhere."

Her mouth quirked again. "Thank you for noticing. I don't think Dad knew about that part, he had no way to. He probably clued in pretty fucking quick once he was through the door, and by then, well." Cort held up her hands and ticked off her fingers. "No radiation, no slavers, plenty of food, water, books, medical supplies, all that jazz, probably an easy choice. And I suppose that way he thought I would have someone, have all those things for my own babies. We were all expected to marry and start producing once we hit twenty-one and I think Paul might've liked me enough to pair off together, we got along well." She smiled shyly, dropping her eyes down from his and blushing. "I liked him enough to always wonder what our kids would've look..."

Cort trailed off, her face shifting from girlish happiness into a hard, brittle expression as she suddenly felt a surge of hate for the Vault, James, and everything in between. _ That wasn't my part, though, was it. That wasn't how it was supposed to play_. "Charon, I don't want to talk about this anymore."

He watched as she started to repeatedly scrub her hands down her stomach and over the tops of her thighs, looking like she was trying to get something dirty off of herself, and quietly fell back to give her space. Not having seen her display this particular behaviour before, he wasn't quite sure of just what else he could do. Touching her didn't seem like the appropriate response, for once. "As you wish."

"I wish a lot of things. 'If wishes and plans were pots and pans...'" She trailed off as the door to her old apartment opened. "Then Wally wouldn't be in my quarters. Get the fuck out!"

Sitting on her old bed, Wally Mack gave her a hateful look from across the room. "Finally, you finish screwing around with those losers. You're going to pay for what you did to my brother." He shifted, pulling a 10mm out of the tangled sheets, taking Cort's complete non-reaction to it as her freezing out of fear. "So what if you picked up a lot of fancy stuff out there? You don't know who you're messing with. Stevie was real good about showing me-"

Cort cut him off with a weary flap of her arms. "I just don't have time for this. Charon, chuck him out."

Wally managed to lift the pistol a bit higher before whatever he had been planning to do was smacked out of his head so fast there was nothing to left to fill the void as a terror out of his worst nightmares appeared in the doorway, towering over her. He was disarmed and dangling off the ground before he clicked back into himself, gathering up enough mental control to promptly lose it all over his bladder, a dark streak blooming up on his crotch.

Making a disgusted face, Charon walked faster as the stain grew, tossing Wally out before the piss could hit Cort's floor. He slapped the door closed and turned back, sounding practical and dry. "We'll have to be careful not to slip when we go out."

"Thank you for that lovely thought." Setting her pack and helmet down, Cort made her own face, gingerly picking around the sheets to see if Wally had stored anything else interesting or harmful in there. What she found was a lot of disgust, and not much of it was interesting. It was all things she definitely could have done without. "Ah Gawd, there's dirty boyshorts in my _beeed_, there's...wait. Those are _my_ underwear. They're-" She blanched. "Oh no, hell _no_, I don't even want to know. Just give me a minute, I need to do something about this." She looked around the half-trashed room, upset and now more than a little nauseated. "Christ. Uh, neaten up the top of that dresser, would you? If he smashed the glass, I'll kill him, I don't care if Amata shits herself over it or not."

Charon walked over to where she had indicated, carefully setting the toppled frames he found there upright one by one as she gathered the linens on her old bed into a ball, strode over to open the door and threw them into the corridor. Cort stared at them for a second before jumping onto the heap with an aggravated grumble, skidding it through the little puddle there until the floor was dry, then kicked the mass into the wall and stomped on it for good measure. She came back in in a huff, carping under her breath as she triggered the door yet again.

"Another thing I miss about home. I can slam doors at home, really really hard. I can't slam these, just _whoosh-click_, and that's not satisfying at _all_ and-"

Shaking his head, the big ghoul examined the pictures as she flopped down hard onto the other bed and buried her face in the pillow, inhaling and hugging it tightly, her legs curling up as she clutched at it. The first, like all of them, was a photo of a smiling Cort, wearing a red ballcap and apparently trying to jockey both the gigantic-looking Pip-Boy on her spindly little arm and a BB gun into the picture at the same time, a very small smiling Cort standing next to a younger version of a smiling James. Her front teeth were huge in comparison with her tiny face, still so like the older one she wore now it seemed like there wasn't any difference. He looked up as she surfaced from the pillow to ask him a question.

"Where would you have your home, if you could choose it?"

Preoccupied, he tossed an absent answer over his shoulder. "Home is wherever I'm with you." She smiled in response, displaying her now perfectly proportioned dentition, and the illusion was broken.

He turned back to the dresser and the next picture as she rolled off one bed to start digging under the other, her rear wiggling in the air as she tried to get farther into the dark space, bits of trash flying out as she pawed around. This one showed a much taller, slightly curvier Cort with a similar haircut to the one she sported now, the unruly mass severely pinned down instead of fluffed up in a crest. She was holding up a sheet of paper with 'G.O.A.T.' printed on the top in large letters, a rather insincere smile fixed on her face. Underneath that grimace of forced cheer, she looked genuinely miserable. Not liking to see that emotion on her face at any particular instance, especially when he couldn't do anything about it, he quickly moved his attention to the last image.

This contained a correctly-sized, very appropriately curved but far too soft-looking Cort with ludicrously long hair, the glossy black sweep of it spilling down over her shoulders and dropping almost to her waist. As intriguing as it was, it also looked like one unholy hell of a tactical nightmare. He grunted to himself. _Good thing it burned off. _Standing with her again was a now very familiar version of James. Charon wondered if Cort had had any inkling of that her father had been planning something, seeing how strained his face was in the picture, his smile not reaching his eyes. Seeing how genuinely happy she had been, he didn't think she had. He took a step back and examined all of the photographs together, curiously contemplating what she had been like when the snapshots were taken before the current one interrupted him with a delighted squeal.

"He's still here, oh goody!"

"Who?" Rather startled at the exuberant outburst, Charon turned quickly, cocking an eyebrow as she writched her way back out from under the bed, pulling along what looked like something Dogmeat would hack up on a bad day. Laughing, she sat up on her heels and hugged it tightly. "What the hell is _that_?"

Cort uncurled her arms and held up the fuzzy, misshapen mass proudly, which on further study resolved itself into a very careworn cuddly toy missing half of its fur, ears and eyes. "It's Eddy Barf. I kept him hid under there instead of recycling him when I supposedly got too old to keep him. I couldn't stand to give him up." She stuck out her tongue as Charon gave her a critical look. "Oh, buzz off, I was one. It was the closest I could get to saying teddy bear when Daddy gave him to me."

Unable to recall any feelings he may have had for his own few playthings(which was a blessing, really, considering the methods that had been used to deter any desire he had had for them after he was taken) and not seeing any real use or practical benefit to the ratty thing, Charon decided that this was something he wouldn't understand even if it was explained to him, focusing instead on finding out what their next objective would be as she went back to fussing over the aptly-named object. "What now?"

Cort popped up and set her teddy gently down on the dresser next to the photographs before spinning around, up on the balls of her feet and clapping softly. "Now, I want to have a shower! There is an absolutely endless supply of hot water with my name on it right around the corner." She graced him with another delighted smile. "You can have one too, if you like."

Charon spent a full second absolutely wallowing in the thought of it, elated at the prospect of being able to indulge in something he had been so rarely able to, how absolutely wonderful the heated spray would feel needling into him, before memories of the last one he had had came crashing in. It had been in Tenpenny Tower, some time after he had been irretrievably ruined, and the first thing he had learned about ghoul flesh that wasn't related to torturing someone made of it was that it didn't particularly like extended contact with hot water. He had managed to scrub part of the skin on his neck loose before he realized what was happening, what had definitely been done to him and what he was doing to himself because of it. There was no guarantee it would happen again, now that he was fully changed, but none that it wouldn't, either. The reminder alone left a sick, coppery taste in his mouth.

"I would prefer not to let my ass hang out down here, figuratively or literally." He was both relieved and ashamed as Cort accepted his refusal without question, presenting a concession for his insecurity instead of an argument.

"Okay. I'll see if Moira has a washtub when we get back, that would be more comfortable for you, huh? That'll be nicer, anyway, I can wash your back for you, with real soap and everything. In the meantime, you can just sprawl out and get comfy while I'm gone." Cort pulled a toothbrush out of her nightstand and brought it up under her nose as he laid himself obediently on the stripped bed next to it, snuffling at the bristles suspiciously before dropping it back in with a leery expression on her face. "You know, that can just wait until I pull a new one out of stores."

Deciding not to have anything to do with any of her now possibly Wally-tainted toiletries, Cort stripped herself bare, pulled a plain white robe out of a drawer, then stopped, looking over herself more critically than she was normally inclined to, feeling rather picked upon and more than a little low about herself. _Everyone's looking at me like I'm all dirty, or some strange freak. When _Butch_ is the only one acting normal, something's just _got _to be wrong with the universe or me, and it appears that gravity is in fact still turned on._ "So I _really_ look okay to you?"

Treating the question as seriously as any she presented him with, Charon eyed her with the satisfied air of someone who has completed a difficult job and knows they have done it well, contentedly taking every part of her in as she twisted around. She finally looked like she had when he had first met her; compact, healthy and muscular, jutting bones thankfully hidden back under firm flesh where they belonged, and extra padding in what he thought were all the right places. He was particularly pleased with the slight curve at the base of her belly, and especially so at the well-rounded bit of anatomy she was currently trying to bend over backwards to see, something he could and did spend hours looking at while he followed along behind her. She was covered in scars she could be proud of, his own obtuse training having taught him that while allowing himself to get them was something to be ashamed of, having them as proof of survival was the opposite. For him, they were a testament to the fact that Cort always got back up.

_She looks more than okay. She looks perfect. Invincible_. Charon didn't say this, so pleased with himself that he wanted to precisely comment on just why he felt as such. Instead, he opened his mouth and quite innocently shoved both feet square into it. "You look fat to me, and-"

Completely blindsided, Cort jerked around so fast she nearly fell. "WHAT?"

Startled, Charon sat up and blinked as she shouted at him, only becoming more confused when she hurriedly wrapped the robe around herself and stormed out. The results of calling after her didn't do anything whatsoever to clear it up for him. "Cort? What's wr-"

"_You're a jerk, is what_!"

Pushing up off the bed, he chased her down the hallways, hauling himself up short when she darted into the women's washroom, Dogmeat managing to slip in just before the door closed. Opening it himself turned out to be an even bigger mistake than whatever one he had just managed to make. "Cort-"

"_GET OUT_!"

Wincing as she shrieked, Charon slapped it shut. "Fuck." He swore again as Butch piped up behind him. Things were just sprinting downhill, now.

"Well looky here. Trouble in paradise?" Butch swung out from around the corner, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face as he leaned back against the wall, immediately flicking out his switchblade and picking under his fingernails with it. After hearing that Cort planned to clean herself up, he had promptly camped himself out to wait for her to go to the shower; partly because he wanted to make another pass at her and partly because he honestly wanted to say he was sorry about her father biting it. James had pretty much always been a total drag, but he had also always given him a fair shake over things, more often than not. The chance of Charon being with her hadn't deterred him, even after what had happened. Butch was far from a stranger at someone bigger slapping him around; it had just been a while since someone bigger was around to do it, and after hearing what had just happened, he was positively overflowing with brash confidence. He wouldn't be scared until it was too far too late to be. "So what did you do? She only yowls like that when someone really burns her cheese. I should know, I've made her do it enough."

Presented with a situation he had yet to deal with that Butch clearly had, Charon had a swift debate with himself. He wasn't above swallowing his pride if it meant that he found out what the hell he had just done to upset Cort so badly, and short of hunting someone else up who had known her for just as long, the greasy little bastard was his only option. Definitely his only option, really; God only knew what would happen if Cort came out searching herself and couldn't find him, and there were still occupants of the Vault who had no idea who or even what he was. It just happened to be an absolutely _reprehensible_-

He let out a long breath through his nose as another muffled screech sounded out from behind the door, Cort deciding the matter for him as she did in so many other things. _Just spit it the hell out. You've done worse before._ "She asked if she looked okay, and I told her she looks fat."

Butch's face went perfectly, almost comically blank before he dissolved into hooting laughter, the curled sweep of his hair bouncing when he pointed at the ghoul. "Oh man, you really stepped in it, huh? Beg for a fuckin' time machine, cause that's the only thing that's gonna help _your_ ass. That's like, one of the worst things you ever coulda done. Just the absolute _tops_." He rolled his eyes, the hair bouncing in time to that gesture as well, unaware that Charon was getting extremely close to ripping it out and seeing how high he would bounce. "Man, you don't know anything about the skirts. I thought you were supposed to be like, old as dirt or somethin'. What the heck is she, your first..." Butch's eyes widened as his voice trailed off, having one of his rare flashes of insight as he interpreted the look on the ghoul's face. It was one he'd seen on his own in the mirror a hundred times or more, practicing how to talk to the girls in the Vault. "Oh. Oh _man_. She's...she's?"

Charon ground out a reply through his teeth. "She's none of your concern."

"Says you, maybe." Butch spent the briefest of moments considering the notion it could be dirty pool, trying to snake a sick guy's girl away from him, but he still seemed pretty frisky, even for someone who looked like he had gone eight rounds with a microwave oven and lost. "I was still here first."

"From what I've heard, you haven't been anywhere."

Butch snapped back, undaunted. "From what _I_ just heard, you just went somewhere totally stupid. What you did, whoo_wee_. It's going to take one hell of an apology, and not even God and all his little freakin' angels will guarantee she'll accept it, not for that." Butch sniffed and shrugged, trying to look nonchalant as he told what he knew to be a bald-faced lie; Cort's anger at this type of clumsy, unintended slight would flare high and peter out almost instantly. _She's probably already coolin' off. Have to work this smooth and fast_. "Even with an explanation. She won't let nobody go without an explanation. Not that you can give her one good enough for _this_."

Charon stared pointedly at the door, still not knowing what the hell he had done, very well aware that Butch was trying to play him over it, and regretting having ever opened his mouth about it to anyone else. _Being screamed at would have been better than this_. "I'm aware of that particular requirement."

"Yeah well, looks like you're not aware of all the ree-quirements." He shrugged again. "Yanno, like _I_ am, since I grew up with her and all." Butch flicked out his hand and spun his knife perfectly around one finger, inordinately pleased with himself for completing the tricky maneuver when the handle smacked back into his palm. "Too old to keep up, huh? Can't learn any new tricks? Someone like her needs a newer model, is what I think. Someone who isn't whipped like a dog. Girls like men who can take charge and make 'em see what they want." His pleased expression departed immediately as Charon suddenly turned and plucked the little knife out of his hand, stopping his next attempt at showing off. "Hey!" Pulling himself up to say something clever and intimidating, Butch didn't get the chance to make his lips meet again as the knife started dancing around the ghoul's hand. It was the only way to describe it. It didn't even seem like he was holding on to it.

Charon stared the kid down as he toyed with the switchblade, twining the cheap little thing through his fingers, rolling his wrist to flick it around the back of his hand and through his palm, first with the handle out and then the blade. He knew it was a crass display of skill, petty and boastful, and for once found he didn't much care. "The only thing she wants," He paused to appreciate Butch flinching as the knife appeared to flick towards his face, held back by a slight tightening of his knuckles on the point before it jerked back to resume its blurring progress. "Is exactly what she says she wants. Nothing else." The handle slapped smartly into the palm of his hand, and Butch jumped as Charon suddenly shot both fists into the wall to either side of his head, making the metal panelling shudder and boxing him in. "I fully expect you to respect her choices as I do, and to realize that the respect I give her does not equate submission." Feeling more than a little satisfied, he pushed away and started walking back to Cort's quarters, retreating into old habits to stifle his remaining anxieties. He would wait, and she would find him, and fix all of it. All he ever had to do was wait.

"Hey! My knife!" Butch scowled in frustration and then confusion as Charon flicked his hand out and pointed back without turning. Butch looked around to where the ghoul had indicated, and found himself speechless for what seemed the umpteenth time in a day. The switchblade was buried up past the hilt. Scowling, he reached up and pulled, finally yanking it out when he braced one foot against the wall. Glancing down the corridor, he smirked and started off in the other direction, his mind already swirling with new plans. "Well. Just have to make sure she makes the _right_ choice, won't I?"


	43. A Maid of Constant Sorrow

_Thanks for the ace reviews and messages folks! Just a note to anyone who hasn't gotten a response back to a PM; if you don't allow them yourself, I can't send one back to you and answer your questions. Answer for the one about updates - pretty much as often as I can now. I'm writing absolutely every day but my spare time is in the dumpster, so some days I write pages, but most it's a few paragraphs or lines of dialogue. Everything goes up as soon as it's done, though. :)_

* * *

**Cort** turned to face the washroom door and screeched, her robe whirling around like a skirt, then stripped it off and threw it at it before stamping into one of the shower stalls. Wrenching at the taps, she kept up a quiet mumble of curses.

"Fat, fat_head _is more like it, give you a fat fucking _lip_-" She cut off into a groan as the water sprayed out of the shower head and quickly heated up, leaning into the wall as it pattered onto her back, streaming down and turning into a river as it sluiced over her rear. "Oh Jesus, I've missed this. Hot water and soap. Just freaking hot water and soap are the best things in the world." Groaning again as the warmth sank into her tired muscles, she tried to let the slithering feeling in the back of her head slip out of her and down the drain, willing it away with the sweat peeling away from her skin. "Almost done, I'm almost done with here and then I can get out into the sunshine and the sky, and maybe I'll sleep on my roof tonight, somewhere as far away from underground as I can get."

Sunk halfway into a babbling trance, she cut off and cracked her eyes into slits as the door slid open, getting ready to snap at Charon to either get out or explain what the hell he had been thinking when a feminine voice spoke up instead.

"Cort?"

She focused her attention entirely on the feeling of the cold tile on her forehead, the rough grout under her fingertips before she responded. "Yes, Amata."

"I wanted to talk about what you mentioned earlier."

Cort sighed and turned off the water. "_Now_? You want to talk now."

Amata came in, checking the hall one last time before shutting the door, then picked the crumpled robe off the floor and hung it next to the showers as she worked up the nerve for the conversation she wanted to have. "I want to hear what you have to say first before I tell everyone else, or one of the other girls tracks you down in here."

_Yeah, because Christine and Susie would be this gauche._ "Go ahead. I'm not going anywhere." _Because if I come out of here right now I'll pop you one in the Goddamned nose._

"I also need you to treat the guards Charon injured, we moved them all up to the holding cell, the clinic was too much of a...well. None of us know how to set bones."

"They can wait until I'm done with my shower."

Amata stared at the shower door for a moment, completely thrown off. "But they're _hurt_."

"So pump them full of drugs until I get there; personally, I'd let them suffer. Right now they're on the bottom of my to-do list."

"Cort, what happened to you up there? You're so...so _different_."

"OF COURSE I'M DIFFERENT!" Cort rammed a fist against the wall, let out a long shuddering sigh and counted to ten. "Did you want me to tell you about what's outside or not?"

Amata drew a breath in through her teeth. "That, and ask about your Dad. I-I'm sorry Cort, I-"

"Short of telling you who murdered him, my father is no longer Vault business, Amata, so drop it."

"Alright. Who, then?"

"The Enclave."

"Who are they?" Cort spent a few minutes telling her what she had learned about them from the Brotherhood and why she had met them, pointedly avoiding any mention of what had really happened inside the Jefferson. When Amata spoke up again, she could practically hear the frown on her face. "I don't understand this. They can't be that bad if they're from the old government. They're the reason the Vaults were built, they're the ones who _saved _us."

"All right, you want to know what happened to Dad? Dad committed suicide _right _in front of me to prevent them from getting what they wanted. Tell me how bad you think that makes them. They're still after me, too, and you. It's all in your father's terminal, he prevented them from getting into the Vault, and if you're smart, you listen to him about that, even if you ignore everything else. They are _monsters_, and you should be afraid of them." _I'm afraid of them_. Cort closed her eyes in relief this time as Amata spoke up, her voice very small.

"Tell me everything I need to know."

Cort did, leaving nothing but her most personal details out, from Megaton and the Citadel to the small settlements scattered around, from the way caps were used and what things had the most value and where the caravan traders went, how scarce pure water was, the different people, factions and creatures she had met, the way sentient ghouls were treated and how everyone from slavers to plain old Wastelanders would target any Vault dweller as an easy mark. "People generally seem to think that anyone who comes out of a Vault is totally bonkers though, so that will work in your favour. What won't is the fact that there's a contract on my head and the Enclave is looking for me and 101. If you send anyone out you have to disguise your origins, cover things up. The Talon Company's stupid enough to think that a Pip-Boy automatically equates me." Whatever Amata wanted to tell them, Cort decided at that point to give the same information to everyone she thought would listen to her before she left, the other girl's next words only reinforcing the notion.

"This is all a lot bigger than I thought."

"You have no idea. You know your Dad has had a mental break, right?"

"Yes. I talked to him before I came back here, and...yes. I don't know if I can forgive what he did."

"You might have to. The terrible part of it is, from his own very twisted perspective, was that your Dad was doing the right thing, and you'll have to too, when the time comes, we have to be_ them_. All of us will. I probably have already, and don't even know it. Can you understand that? Do you get that this isn't going to turn out as some noble crusade, that things are going to get bloody again down the road, no matter what you do?"

Amata nodded, then remembered that Cort couldn't see her. At least not with her eyes. It seemed like she was seeing all too well, otherwise."Yes."

"Good. Now kindly let me alone." Cort waited for the sound of her leaving for a few moments, then squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her hands up as she started talking again.

"Cort, I need to thank you for all of this, what you've done for me, us, I mean...but there's something else I need to do, and I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry. You won't be able to stay here. On the way to the Overseer's Office, I ran into the Macks, and Officer Taylor, a-a few others. They're still angry with..." She trailed off, consternated as Cort started laughing in high, weak giggles. There wasn't anything laughable about any of this, not what her father had done, not what Cort had turned into, some hardhearted _thing_, and definitely not the fact that more than one person had apparently preferred her this way, Susie, Freddie and Butch all clamouring for her to stay and take care of things, things that by right were her own to take care of. Susie and Freddie had been circumspect, but Butch, oooh Butch. _Let Cort 'take the show until I grow into my cup size', he says. First chance I get, that pomade-covered jerkoff is getting his chance to bolt. Just a few minutes alone with the door left open..._ Pushing the problem away for the moment, Amata snapped at the door. "What's so funny?"

"What makes you think I _want_ to stay? Everything was wrong the whole time, nobody has the right face not even me anymore-" Cort bit back the words and the high lunatic laugh that wanted to come out with them. _Thrown out? I _want _to be thrown out this time. You can't exile me, I quit! _"I mean the way everyone treats Freddie and Butch, Jesus. The blind eyes everyone turns, like what was happening to Christine. I'm in a world now where I can do what I want and meet the consequences on my own terms, why the hell would I give that up? I'm not going to roll over on that for you, not for anyone."

Amata resisted the urge to stamp her foot. "What are you _talking_ about?"

"Freddie's not stupid, Amata; he's strung out. He's been on anti-anxiety meds for years because unsurprisingly, smart people don't do too well living in holes. it's the only thing that's kept him from going completely off his rocker. Butch isn't stupid either; stunned as a lobotomized bunny, sly and slick and _completely _out for himself, but not stupid. And don't give me that 'what about Christine?' shit. You know as well as I do her father started smacking her around when she filled out and started looking at boys. There is something fundamentally wrong-" Feeling her temper rise, Cort bit back on every other big and small problem about the Vault that she wanted to harry Amata over. _I'm too tired for this. I'm done. I want to go home_. "Short version is, I'll take my chances with the occasional whackjob raider trying to nail me six times over against just about everyone down here. _My _life is up there. Now please go away. I've told you all I'm going to, I'll go see to the guards when I'm done." Cort turned the water on again and started belting out a verse of 'Butcher Pete' , drowning out anything that the water couldn't.

"_Cort_-"

"_He starts choppin' and don't know when to stop, all you fellows gotta watch your wives, 'cause Pete don't care who's meat he chops_," She broke off when the door to the washroom opened and closed again, listening hard. "Dogmeat? She gone?" An affirmative whuff. "Good. Now get in here, you get bath-time too. Wait, let me open the darn door first, sillybutt." Cort crouched as Dogmeat tried to slink under the stall door, his armour catching up on the bottom edge with a clunk. Stripping it off as he scrabbled on the floor, she shoved it away and pulled him the rest of the way into the shower, reaching up to pump a mix of soap and shampoo out of the dispensers, indiscriminately slathering it over the both of them. With Amata gone, she focused back on the last reason she had been angry, since at some point she would have to face him, too.

"Is Momma fat? I don't think I am." She hugged the dog tightly. "Jesus everyone, _everything_ down here is just slamming me every-which-way, everything's acting _wrong_. I'm the cosmic joke filling in some kind of misery sandwich. Why would he say something so hurtful?" Cort frowned as she scrubbed the clots of dirt out of Dogmeat's fur and her own skin halfway to raw, calming down enough for something to strike her as strange. "Why would he say it like that?"

The ghoul was circumspect about not mentioning anyone's appearance when he lashed out, focusing on everything else that could possibly be denigrated about them. Even in his dirtiest moods, he had never resorted to insulting anyone, human or ghoul, based on their looks. If he had done it now, he was either making a concerted effort at hurting her, or...

"Or he didn't mean to hurt me at all." Cort closed her eyes tightly as what had happened started to come clear for her, confirming it as she ran her hands over herself. There were no longer hollows bracketing her collarbones, her cheeks were full and so were her breasts; she couldn't feel her ribs without pressing in for them and the ridge of her pelvis was a smooth curve sweeping into the flat of her belly instead of a jutting shelf. Opening her eyes, she put her hands on either side of Dogmeat's head and turned his face up to meet her earnest one, the dog blinking and twitching his ears as the water pattered down onto it. "I _am _fat, compared to the other poor skinny bastards grubbing it out up there. How can he think it's bad to tell me that, when nearly everyone else he sees is next door to starving. I look good, I really very truly look _good_." Unable to tolerate the pinging drops anymore, Dogmeat squinched his eyes shut and sneezed. Cort blinked. "Thankyou. Now I have pretty pretty makeup, too. Made of snot."

Tilting her face up as Dogmeat gave her a happy grin, she washed it clean again, then started pulling out a little collection of feminine disposables from the wall, scrubbing and scouring and shaving, putting the trash reluctantly into the appropriate receptacles for disposal after pushing away the urge to save them. "I can get plenty of new ones from stores. Along with a toothbrush, and toothpaste, _spearmint_, even. No more scrubbing my teeth with a rag and vodka."

Cort finally stepped out close to an hour later, water streaming off of her and the dog and running in rivulets across the floor. Feeling elated and very silly at being clean for the moment, she looked down and smiled at him, then bent and shook her head, droplets flying everywhere. He grinned back and shook himself briskly, yipping as she squealed. "Stop it! Okay, you're dry, I'm dry, and _oohhohoh _it's cold. I should have shorted the fan out, let the whole room fill up with steam."

Pulling her robe on and tying it up as she walked to the door, Cort stopped to stare at herself as she passed the full length mirror on the wall, one of the few concessions to gender the women's washroom had been given. What was attached to her scalp didn't look so much like hair but more of a thick, stormy cloud that floated along with her head. She had never bothered to let it grow back in after the first time, correctly deciding that it was too big a liability when she was fighting and too inconvenient to keep groomed. She fiddled with a tangle, getting a small bit of comfort from the way it felt, the pulling sensation reminding her of Charon. "Well, at least someone likes it well enough, he's always messing it up and neatening it ou..."

Cort trailed off as her fingers moved a lock of hair out of the way, letting the lights overhead hit it at just the right angle. "Oh what the flippityshitting _hell_." Slightly frantic, she brought her other hand up, parted her hair flat to her head and bent forward, wanting to deny and confirm what she had seen at the same time. "No, nono_noooo_, I'm not even _twenty_ yet." Nose already a bare inch from the mirror, she let herself lean into it, pressing her face against the cold glass. She wasn't seeing things; what looked like close to a third of her hair or more was coming out stark white at the roots. Backing up suddenly, she fluffed it back up into a riot in a panicked effort at hiding the offending strands, then clapped her hands over her ears when she saw there were more at her temples. "This is so not fair, not fair at _all_, and...and..."

Trailing off again, Cort carefully dropped her hands to her robe, unwrapped it, took a good hard look southwards and then whipped it shut again with a choking sound and a slap of damp fabric . "Well spiffy! Carpet's matching the drapes. There's salt in my pepperpot. Oh _God_ it's not working, I just can't make this funny. May-maybe I can make it go away if I think about it real hard, maybe I was wrong, it's the lights, it really is." Looking up at the ceiling, she took a deep breath, held it, and let the robe drop to the floor. She looked back at the top of her head, then lower, then lower still as Dogmeat sat beside her, peering at himself. "I've really got white hair, don't I." She got a quick glance, and an affirmative whuff.

After confirming that this new outrage was real and allowing herself to be pleasantly, outrageously indignant about it, Cort let her eyes wander over the rest of herself, this fit of pique she was having slowly disseminating into a depressed funk. _Scars, scars and more scars, red and pink and purple and white. Hello, fellas. I see Deathclaw, and molerat, and feral, and bullets; knife, radroach, broken pool cue, broken nose, although that one's kinda cute, I don't know _what _the flippityfuck _you _came from, laser, plasma, buzzsaw, let's not forget the two botched suicide attempts, oh no, never...oh. Oh, no._ Cort brought a hand up and gently touched the left side of her forehead, tracing a fingertip over the long white slash that had been put there when Carlo sent her crashing into a staircase in Underworld. It went from the far corner of her eyebrow and across in a diagonal, almost reaching her hairline in the middle. _Skinny, nasty little prick, because of him it's even my face. Charon should have thrown him into fucking orbit. I'd forgotten...even my face._

The last time she had looked in this mirror, there hadn't been a mark on her, and her hair had been black as pitch, down to her waist. Seeing herself now, so many scars roping around in various light and dark shades, topped by a wild crest of slowly but seemingly inexorably greying hair, she found that she felt rather like a second-hand piece of furniture; broken in and useful, but not terribly pleasing from an aesthetic standpoint. She let her eyes drift over the stark tan lines on her neck and arms. _Or a patchwork doll. All different parts, and none of them fit together right, inside or out_. She hugged herself, hunching over. Nothing had been where it was supposed to be in the Vault, and now she had proof that that substituting sonofabitch had done it to her too, sometime when she was up top, when she wasn't looking. It couldn't possibly be something that she had allowed to happen.

"I would have noticed if it was my fault, I always do, I'm _smart_, I was _pretty_-" Her voice cracked. "I don't even have room to complain, really. Tulip or Graves would probably have a few things to say to me whinging about a few marks on the packaging. At least I've still got my whole wrapper on." Cort tried giving herself a disapproving look, found that it didn't improve her morale any, then tried a smile on to see if _that_ would work, then promptly discovered that it made her feel even worse, the expression so out of place with how she was really feeling that it was like seeing an Easter bonnet on a dead body. Giving the entire exchange with herself up as an effort in futility, she wrapped herself in her robe as tight as she could, absently deviating for a drink of water before she left. Her cupped hand was halfway to her mouth before she realized she was kneeling on the floor in one of the stalls.

It was an honest slip for someone who had spent months drinking water in every condition out of every available container, particularly since toilets were one of the prime watering holes of the Wasteland, almost all of them always having a supply of plentiful, if rather stagnant and irradiated water. Using them for their original purpose was almost unheard of, even by the worst packs of raiders; water was too scarce, and fouling it for others was a risky business, since no one could know when they might need to use it again themselves. Living in Megaton might have readjusted her thinking, if she had been back for longer than even a day. Being in a clear mental state instead of burdened by the stress of the last few hours might have helped too.

None of this occurred to Cort as she sat there, trying not to sob. The only thing firmly in mind was the fact that she felt even more divorced from her old life, and she spent a long time curled up on the cold tile floor of the stall staring at the perfectly clean water in her hand, watching it seep out from between her fingers until all that was left was a tiny pool in the deep cup of her palm. Her weathered, callused palm. _I suppose it's better this happened first to remind me, rather than first forgetting where to go and using a corner. Jesus baldheaded _Christ,_ I'm not a girl, I'm a stray dog. An aging,_ _ill-tempered_, ugly _stray dog. Welcome to who you are now. Woof._

Cort stood up, meditatively sucked the last of the water out of her hand, shook the droplets from her fingers and left.

* * *

_Yes, I know I said last time would be the last New Vegas Vignette. But then my husband bought it for me, with Dead Money and Honest Hearts! So I wrote another wee one since I thought I'd be playing it and wanted to share the happy! And then my motherboard blew up in the first day of playing it and caught on fire. ~:| I wish I was exaggerating, there were sparks and pops and everything. My power supply went with it. Apparently it wasn't beefy enough for the workout FNV put it through, so uh, heads up if you haven't upgraded that lately. I thought ME2 doing it was just a fluke. Oops._

* * *

**Raul** glanced up lazily from the dilapidated easy chair he had parked himself in to keep watch from as Charlie walked up to him holding a piece of paper. Everyone else had conked out almost immediately after there was no apparent sign of pursuit, and the Courier had almost forcibly volunteered him for the first shift. "I get to stay awake because I'm the new kid, huh, boss. Seniority with you comes before age and experience and broken old men."

She gave him a patient look, then whispered a question back at him. "I wanted to talk to you and I didn't know how long it would take. Raul, can you..." She trailed off and glanced around briefly, searching for the correct word, then held the paper out. "_Understand_ this at all?"

He took it, held it up in the moonlight coming in the window to look at it, handed it back with a bland look of his own. "Yes. I know it's amazing, but yo hablo inglés." He pointed at her. "_Usted_ habla inglés." He positively jabbed his finger towards the floor in emphasis for his next words before slumping back in the chair. "We're even speaking it _right now_. If you're going to try and take the piss out of ancient Mexicans, you have to get more inventive than that, we're _crafty_."

Seemingly oblivious to his acrimony, she crumpled the sheet up slightly, then tried handing it back. "I need someone to tell me what it says."

Annoyed, he rolled off another effortless line of obfuscating sarcasm. "It doesn't say anything, boss. You have to _read _it."

Charlie regarded him steadily and sighed, seemingly coming to a decision. "I can't read it."

He jerked up, startled out of his blasé attitude. "What did you say?"

"I said I dang well _can't_. Since I caught that double tap to the head, everything looks all scrambled. I've been making out all right, I've been able to fool others into reading things to get by, but I can't keep it up forever. You could read things off, though, maybe try and teach me my letters again?" Charlie stared down at her hands, unable to look him in the face any longer and her voice getting progressively quieter until it dropped into almost nothing. "I know I don't know you from Adam, but I thought with how you are I could go out on a limb for once, I didn't think you'd be liable to...make fun of something I don't have anymore. Treat me like I was some lame dog if I asked for help. Shit, Raul, even_ raiders _can read a fucking highway marker." She swallowed, her throat clicking, and she barely did more than mouth out her next words. "I don't even know how to write out the name Boone give me."

* * *

_And that is it, until Bethesda finishes putting out the DLCs and I play 'em. Now back to our regularly scheduled insanity. ;)_


	44. He's Seen Trouble, All His Days

_Thanks for the new reviews and alerts, folks!_

* * *

**Charon** glanced up apprehensively from where he sat on the bed as Cort came back into the room with Dogmeat, the animal dragging his armour along behind her, and watched as she curled up on the other across from him and started untangling her hair. "Cort?" She didn't look up or say anything in response, the forlorn expression on her face not budging an inch, and he let out a silent curse. She was still unhappy with whatever he had done; on further examination, he would go so far as to say she was flat-out miserable. "Cort, I'm sorry. Please tell me what I did."

Dragging in a deep breath and still not lifting her head, she hitched it out woodenly. "If you don't know what it was, I'm not telling you." She finally snapped her eyes up a few minutes later, irritated for once at how he kept staring at her, his eyes unfocused. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to figure out how I erred so badly on something I should know. You wouldn't be angry with me and withholding why if I hadn't missed something extremely obvious." He jerked his head around as she suddenly thumped down beside him and hugged so hard she almost made him cough.

"I don't deserve you."

Charon tried to parse this new hairpin turn for a second or two, found it took him nowhere even faster, and just gave up the ghost. "I've definitely missed something."

"No, I did. I stopped being mad at you a little while ago. It was a stupid misunderstanding on my part, and there's no point in me staying upset over something _you_ didn't understand. I'm just...don't worry about it."

Unsure that anything had been actually resolved, he deferred out of habit and reluctantly let it whatever he had done go for the moment, choosing to focus on the next apparent problem. "Alright. What else happened."

Cort shook her head. "Nothing. I just went and got cleaned up, got a good look at myself."

Not buying it with the way she was burying her face into his shoulder, Charon repeated himself. "What else."

"Nothing else."

"Cort, looking at yourself wouldn't make you look like someone just smacked the shit out of you."

She let go and slumped. "Oh, _thanks_."

Hearing the hurt tone in her voice, he gave her another long, searching stare, trying to determine the cause for it. She had a tendency to be irritatingly obtuse with certain things, and he was always caught between the ingrained impulse to not question her and the one to drag whatever was festering in her mind to the surface, knowing it would erupt sooner or later. The real question was, which option would she erupt along with. This time it was relatively easy to figure out. She was upset after looking at herself, so therefore, there must have been something there that she didn't like, which was blisteringly ridiculous in his opinion, since _he_ liked all of her as a whole(he had even said as much, although he had somehow screwed up the delivery to a fatal degree). He particularly liked the new smell coming off of her, in point of fact. He bent in to get more of it, deciding any distraction at this point was a good one and would give him time to figure out what the hell to do next, since for once she was being less than wordy. "What do you smell like. It's different."

She shrugged as he tickled her ear, not really wanting to be distracted from her wallowing. "Uh. Vault-Tec Standard Soap Ration Number Forty-two, I think? It's just what was already in the dispensers. It's supposed to smell like coconuts, they're actually a drupe, which is a fruit, but then I suppose all nuts are really...you like it?"

"It makes me want to touch you and bite you and rub myself all _over _you." Charon allowed himself to feel marginally relieved as Cort smiled and flushed in response to what passed for flirting in his brusque repertoire, a bloom of pink moving from her chest to her face, feeling warm against his own as he nuzzled around the crook of her neck and bit her gently. His actions weren't wiping out what was bothering her entirely, and he knew without question that there was quite a lot more rattling her up than a single issue after the events of the afternoon, but they had definitely mitigated this most obvious one slightly. The fact that it was making him feel better was just an added bonus, and he tried coaxing her into more. "I want to get a good look at you." Pulling her to her feet, Charon loosened the top of her robe and slid her arms out, holding one up to run his hand down her side, then promptly stopped dead. "What happened to your fuzz?"

"My _what_?" Letting out a squeak as he jabbed her armpit to clarify his statement, she felt another flush moving up her neck to her cheeks, this time from embarrassment. "I shaved it off."

Baffled, he tilted his head, still holding her arm up like he was volunteering her for something. "...Why."

"Because, you know, I'm...supposed to, I guess." She gave a herky-jerky half shrug.

"I never took mine off when I still had it." He frowned, and she yelped even louder as he let go of her arm to yank her robe the rest of the way open, giving her crotch a curious look. "You left that little patch on."

Snatching the disrupted cloth out of his grip, Cort snugged it up under her arms like a makeshift towel until her midsection was in a swathed stranglehold. "I took it off because I'm a _girl_, you don't because you're _not_, and yes I left _that_ there, I'm not that flipping adventurous."

"I don't because I _can't_. Although I don't know why I would fucking want to if I could. Shaving my face was enough of an annoyance when still I needed to." Charon spared a moment to feel cynical about why he didn't have to put up with the specifics of male grooming anymore before refocusing back on her, remonstratively shaking his head. He had been required to grow a beard for one of his odder assignments with his second employer, and being clean-shaven again after an extended period of facial hirsutism had left him cranky and irritated for a week. "You're going to get itchy."

"I'm going to stop talking about this now." Cort flopped down onto the bed, looking cross again.

"I'm not good at this." He sighed heavily, and she looked back up, her face instantly attentive. Now was as good a time as any, then. If he made things worse, at least it would fit in with how the rest of his day had gone. "Cort?"

"Charon."

"Do I treat you the right way?"

Cort blinked, looking rather bemused before switching to thoughtful. "I think you'd bloody hear about it if you didn't. You did, in point of fact, even if it was me being an idiot. What brought this on?" Watching him roll his shoulders uncomfortably, she was fairly certain she already knew what had prompted the odd question.

"Various things. I've been thinking."

"Thinking about what Amata said to me while we were out in the hall."

"Yes. Cort, I wasn't..._made_ the right way to be what you need."

"Yes, you were made for that. Hardware's all there. Software's just a wee bit scrambled." Cort gave him a cheeky grin, the expression lighting her face up. "See, there are boys and there are girls, although you can mix it up and have one of each or both of the same, but we'll get into that later, gender roles are _fascinating_, but I digress, so when both reach sexual maturity, they start getting urges and-"

Charon slapped a hand over his face as she started making suggestive gestures with her own, her drying hair fluffing up in time with the movements. "I am _not_ listening to this."

"But I haven't gotten to the part about the zygotes yet. I can give you a stork euphemism and everything."

"_Cort_."

"Oh all right." She relented, hearing how pained he sounded. "Charon, I only need exactly what you are capable of giving, and you're not cruel to me. You can either trust me on that, or I can list how you're not in numerous, verbally fluffy, completely embarrassing ways."

"But I've hurt you." He reached out for her shoulders, then abruptly stopped short of actually touching her. Staring at the two dark splotches on the front of her arms, he closed his hands around the thumbs that had made them and drew back. "Not on purpose, but I've still done it."

"Yes, I am aware." Cort picked at the nap in her robe, pointedly not looking at him. "If I thought you were hurting me on purpose I would have left you immediately the first time you did."

Even though he agreed with them wholeheartedly, Charon still took the words like a sock to the gut, and it took him a moment to pull himself back together and ask the question that had been festering in his head for well over an hour. "Then why are you letting me get away with it? I know it's not right." Frustrated when she continued to avoid meeting his gaze, he grabbed her chin and gently tilted it up, letting go again when she finally made eye contact. "If my conduct is inappropriate, you _need_ to correct it. You're supposed to reprimand me when I display the wrong behaviour."

"What, jerk your leash when you stray too far?" Cort snapped at him, her temper flaring. "You're not some trained animal."

Charon made an aggrieved noise and shook his head, struggling to keep his patience with her as he tried to stay calm. "Cort, that's _exactly_ what I am. Now answer my question. Please."

Cort bit her tongue and kept it firmly between her teeth for the moment, knowing she would end up starting a fight if she disagreed with him now. Focusing on the discomfort from that, she wondered just how to phrase that she was perfectly fine with getting a few bruises in exchange for avoiding rebuking him; definitely was after what he had just said. The last thing she wanted to do was show disapproval for what was more or less a normal reaction to seeing a loved one in mortal risk, on the off-chance that it would prompt him to start bottling his feelings up. He would settle down quickly, he always did once she explained things, but until he felt he was on solid footing, anything new he didn't know how to deal with in relation to loving her made him extremely uncertain and prone to cracking up. There was also the fact that she felt she slightly deserved a bit of reprisal, considering what she tended to put him through. Just a bit. Just a bit of pain felt good, but not if it ended up making him feel even worse later. She kept rolling the question around in her head, Charon waiting pensively as she searched for a way to dodge it.

Ultimately, she decided that there wasn't a good way to explain her motivations with the way he could potentially take things, especially with how worked up he already was. _What do I say to that, 'Hey, I'm letting you act out because you're kindof emotionally fragile and I feel guilty and I don't want to hurt your developing social behaviour _and _because I know you're scared half out of your wits when you do it?' Yeah point out that you're letting him get away with something extremely undisciplined to spare his feelings while using him to spare your conscience, that'll go over like gangbusters. Christ, sometimes I disgust myself. The _things _that _did _this to him disgust me more. If they were alive to find I would be careful, _so_ careful. I would find _him _bloody satisfaction, in every inch, by inches I would-_

Cort took in a deep breath and forcibly cleared her mind, speaking when she was sure her voice would come out steady. "So just be more careful. You can do that, too. You already do so much." Seeing him hesitate further, she tried to make light of the whole thing before he could point out she hadn't answered him at all. "Cripes Charon, it's okay, I've gotten worse bruises from falling over my own feet. It's not like you're going off your nut and beating me to a pulp or something, unless you're planning that for the next dumbass thing I do." It didn't work at all as she had hoped.

Aghast, Charon jerked up like he had been shot. "I didn't _plan_ any of it! No, I _didn't_, I _won't_, it _wasn't_ on purpose, you _can't _think that, _I can't_-"

Cort choked out an apology and scrambled up as his voice broke, holding out her arms to him. "I'm sorry, bad move, I shouldn't have said that. Come on, come here, please. Don't worry, I forgive you for all of it, everything, always. You haven't done anything wrong, I'll tell you immediately if you ever do." Charon slid to his knees in front of her with a pained look on his face and reached out for her, hesitating at the last second. She bent forward and nodded encouragingly. "Go on. Practice being careful." She kept herself perfectly still as he tentatively pressed his hands against her sides in a featherlight grip, holding her like she was an eggshell, before moving one to splay over her back as the other slid up and into her hair. Reaching up to place her own hands on the back of his neck, moving her thumbs around in small, soothing circles until she felt the tension in him start to loosen, Cort wondered if he would ever really realize how gentle he could actually be. "See? I knew you could do it. You can do anything I ask you to, can't you."

"Yes, Cort."

She waited then, since she had no idea what to do next and he showed no desire to move, the ghoul seemingly losing himself in the slow repetitive motions, the only sound his quiet, raspy breathing, his eyes closing as he let his mind drift, his head pillowed on her chest. Cort reached up and brushed a hand over his patchy scalp, letting the thin red strands on it run through her fingers as he pulled at her own dark ones. "Why do you like playing with my hair, anyway?" Expecting a brusque, concise answer, she wasn't prepared for the childlike response he gave, the words coming out in a quiet sigh.

"It makes it all better. It means you found me."

"Well of course I found you. I'll _always_ find you, no matter what." Cort pressed her lips against the top of his head, once, twice, then curled her arms around his broad shoulders, suddenly feeling fearful for him. Of what, she wouldn't allow herself to speculate on. _Not right now, not yet. _"Promise."

Charon said nothing in return, just sighed again and slid back into whatever still place he had found inside of himself. Cort would have thought him asleep, if not for the continued tugging on the back of her scalp. Rousing after a short while, he pressed more firmly into the shelter of her body and gave a contented grunt before pulling back and standing up, his face resolute. "Cort."

She gave him a searching look, then relented, pushing her worries away. Whatever mood he had fallen into seemed to have departed entirely, and he was back to how he normally was, towering reassuringly over her. _We'll figure everything out at home, we just need to go home_. "Charon. Better?"

"Yes. Don't let me hurt you again."

"You won't. I trust you."

"I know. I like that. I don't like this place."

"Neither do I."

"Good. Then let's get the fuck out of here."

"Agreed. You get things ready, pack up my old stuff in here, the things I'd want. I'm going to go grab some last-minute odds and ends from Dad's office and goodies from the supply room, say goodbye to anyone worth it, and then we'll blow this pop stand." Cort held in a laugh as Charon suddenly gave her an avid, hopeful look along with a bundle of clean clothing, and promised herself she would hurry back to him. "No, not literally."

"Spoilsport."

* * *

**"Stanley?"** Cort poked her head into the Reactor room, looking about. After leaving Charon, she had raided the clinic for any and everything useful she could find, including spare packages of both Stanley and Freddie's medications, only one of which she planned to give up. She had spent another stretch of quiet moments alone in there after finding another holotape James had made, hidden in a safe she had discovered behind a sampler of her mother's favourite quote when she ripped the frame from the wall. _Too many secrets, Daddy. Too many. Which ones did you leave on here?_ She thumbed the cartridge in her pocket and called out again. "Stanley, I know you're in here, Christine told me where you've been sacking out." She pulled a little bottle out of another overstuffed pocket and shook it. "I got your pills."

"Down here, Cortenay." Cort walked through another door and into the little utility room where her father and Jonas had set a makeshift shooting gallery up. Stanley was bent over a table set to one side in a jumble of crates, random parts of different machinery strewn over it. He answered a question she didn't ask, not looking up as she came up next to him. "It's easier to work here, since things went south. Less noise, and nobody bothers me."

"Oh. Hi."

"Hi yourself."

Cort rubbed one foot over the back of her leg. After finding out that Christine had lost her mother and sister, she hadn't been able to stomach the idea of asking her if she had told Stanley Bea was dead. With her and Mary gone, he only had one daughter left. Cort suddenly found herself very aware of the knowledge she had killed one of their husbands, and his eldest grandson. She didn't want to know if he knew, either. It was the last thing she ever wanted to know. "Stanley, I have to tell you something. Bea-"

"I know."

"Do you want to talk about it, or anything? I know that-"

Stanley quietly interrupted her again, still not looking up from the little broken motor he was working on. "Do you want to talk about what happened to James?"

"Not really, no."

"Then let's pretend nothing has happened to anyone. Just for a little while. I probably won't see you again, so I'd like that."

"Me too. Very much."

"Okay then." He looked up and smiled a sad, sleepy smile that nearly broke her heart. "What else did you need me to do for you? You never hunt me down just to deliver my pills, fussbudget."

Cort shoved everything but the present moment out of her mind, and held up her left arm. "Can you show me how to get my Pip-Boy off? Not permanently, never, but just how to remove it if I need to hide where I'm from better?"

Stanley brightened, looking thoughtful. "Yeah, I can do that. I suppose I'll have to show whoever starts going up, too, now that Amata's getting her way. She came to talk with me a little while ago. I don't know how I'm going to manage with some of them, at least I know _you_ won't end up taking your own arm off." He pulled her closer to the table and sat her down on a crate, putting her arm over his work space. "Now this is very complicated, and you have to hold very, very still. It's the only thing you can use on this kind of high tech equipment." Stanley reached into a pocket with a grave look on his face, pulled out a paperclip, carefully straightened it and then jabbed it into a tiny pinhole on the side of her Pip-Boy, which promptly sprang open and fell off onto the table with a clatter. Cort stared at her bare, fishbelly white forearm. Then at her Pip-Boy. Then up at him.

"A paperclip. You tell us hideous accidents can happen if we try to get them off ourselves and you remove it with a _freaking_ _paperclip_?"

He shook his head. "You don't want to know what happens if you try to use something other than the paperclip for that job."

"What, the local office supply union will come by and bust my kneecaps in the middle of the night? Seriously, a _paperclip_?"

He shrugged. "Yup. It's in the Vault-Tec service manual and everything, although I've got an officially issued tool that looks a lot more intimidating. Keeps people from trying it themselves. Pushing it in again while it's off resets it for a new user, so make sure you don't do that, otherwise you'll lose all of your stored data." He rubbed his hands together briskly. "Now how about we see how it's held up out there. I've always wanted to inspect one after a real good field test." Stanley settled into fussing over her Pip-Boy, looking almost happy as he lost himself in the work, picking at different things before he finally fitted it back onto her arm, showing her how to replace it correctly. Stepping back after scrolling through the maintenance screens, he rubbed his chin with one hand, giving her left one a speculative look. "I'll give you a new glove too while I've got you here. I don't know what you've been dragging your old one through, and I don't think I want to know. I'll probably burn it after you take it off. Whatever it's been subjected to, it's bad enough that its fouled up some of your readings." He stripped it off, muttering. "Probably dirt got in through the seams and caught up under the sensor. It always ends up being dirt when they go dingy."

"What readings?"

"Oh, nothing big, don't worry. Glove sensor can't agree with the cuff about what your te-" Both of them looked around as someone cleared their throat and called out.

"Cort?" Herman Gomez poked his head in through the door.

"I'm in here, Officer Gomez."

"Amata sent me to get you to see about the rotten bastards," he stopped and cleared his throat dramatically, rolling his eyes skyward and making her grin. "Excuse me, _mutineers_, I should say, that your big friend wiped the floor with."

"Of course she did. I'll just be a minute or two." He nodded and stood by the door, and Cort waited quietly as Stanley took her glove apart and replaced it with a new leather housing, pulled from one the crates after a short search. Finished, he shrugged and gave her another sleepy grin.

"There, fussbudget, all done. Scram. Remember what I told you about the paper-" He jumped as she slammed herself into him and hugged.

"I'll miss you."

Stanley shut his eyes, tried not to think about the things that made him want to shove her away, and hugged back. "Yeah. Me too. Now keep that thing clean, I can't be around to fix it for you all the time."


	45. Come In Under the Shadow

_Thanks for the new reviews, and hello new people looking at OotD! I presume you'll see this eventually. :P  
_

* * *

**"So** I'm apparently the new Security Chief." Walking side by side as they made their way into the Security office, Gomez glanced over to Cort with a rather bemused look on his face.

"I think that is an excellent idea." Coming up to the cell, Cort patted at her pockets and frowned. "Shoot."

"What?"

"Charon busted up a wrist, didn't he."

"He did indeed." Gomez smiled to himself. "You know, I wasn't sure when I met him, but I think after that I could get to like him."

Cort smiled back despite herself. "Well, I've got the Stimpaks and Med-X, but no splint. Can you go back and get one? It's in one of the cabinets on the far wall, just read the labels."

He frowned, looking reluctant. "Oh. Are you sure you'll be okay in there by yourself?"

"I think I can manage. If Charon had a hand in trussing them up, there's no way they'll get loose without help and one hell of a sharp knife."

"Alright then. Be right back."

"Officer Gomez?"

He paused and turned back. "Yes?"

"Do you think Charon should have killed them?"

Gomez bent his head, giving the question the serious consideration he thought it deserved. "I think if they had killed my boy, _I_ would have. But it's moot now, anyway."

"Yeah. See you in a few." Cort waited until she could no longer hear him, then opened the door and slipped inside, shutting it behind her. She was instantly greeted with six separate strings of profanity, and she rolled her eyes dramatically. "Oh goody, no gags." They all stopped as she drew her pistol, swinging it in a slow arc that included every one of the bound men sitting against the far wall. "Good. Stay that way or I'll shoot you in the knees." Cort stood for a moment, dispassionately looking back and forth between the half dozen men on the floor, then reholstered the gun. "There is a sickness here I was brought into to deal with, and the last part of that sickness that I _can_ deal with is you. All of you are terrible people. You think you're big men in here, ringed around the top of the molehill. If I had my way of it, I'd dump you off outside somewhere and watch the fun when you met someone bigger, because compared to the things out there, _you are_ _tiny_." Stretching, she started walking back and forth, examining each of them in turn. "What's going to happen now is, you all are going to shrink even further in stature."

O'Brian broke in from one end of the group, not able to stand it any longer. "Listen you tainted little freak, we don't take-" He cut off abruptly as Cort's pistol suddenly appeared back in her hand, the fat end of the suppressor pointing straight at his groin.

"I'm not fussy about what part of you gets smaller _first_. Now kindly hold your fucking flapping tongue before I slice it out and feed it to you." She continued, leaving the pistol trained on him. "Amata is in charge. Alphonse supports her. Officer Gomez will be the new Security Chief, and all of you are going to be good little boys and behave wherever those three decide to put you. There will be no reprisals, no coups, no bitching, no whining, etcetera, et al. Now some of you are asking yourselves, who's going to make us? There's six of us, six is a _lot_, compared to a bunch of naive kids, civilians, one good guard and a broken old man, and me and mine won't be around in a few hours. So I've decided I'll have to leave a lasting impression to keep you from destroying the rest of this place."

"There's not one fucking thing you or that rotting pile can do to stop us, and you're not going to shoot me. We all heard that little catfight you had. You're not going to risk pissing off your girlfriend." Deciding he wasn't finished, O'Brian reared his head back and spat in her face, Cort turning aside just in time to keep from being blinded by it. "Things have changed down here since the traitor who spunked you out ran off."

Cort shrugged, pulling a folded rag from her pocket and delicately wiped the clot of phlegm from her cheek. "No, I guess not, but it doesn't absolve me from the responsibility he left me with before he ran. If I want to keep Amata's opinion of me high, I can't shoot you. You and Richards shot Mary and Tom Holden, though. I liked Mary and Tom. They were honest, good people who loved each other very very much." Reholstering her pistol again, she started digging through her belt pouches and pockets as she crouched in front of him, suddenly smiling with far too many teeth. "So I very much like the fact that it's _you _that had your appendix out, O'Brian. Open your mouth." She scowled as he tightened his lips, looking at her with new wariness. "What, now you keep it shut? Fine." She shot her hand out and viciously pinched his nose shut, ramming the soiled rag deep into his mouth when he finally gasped for air.

The other men in the room stared wide-eyed as she stripped his armour off and yanked down the zipper of his suit, kneeling to straddle over his thighs and rucking up his undershirt until a white scar low on his belly was exposed. O'Brian thrashed, stopping abruptly when she suddenly flicked out a switchblade and pressed the tip against it. "So. I agree that you can really do anything you like, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. But eventually, I'll find out if you do, and then I'll come find you. It doesn't matter where you run or hide; up top is _my _home now, and it's pretty damned obvious I can get back into yours just fine. So if you start having any bad thoughts, find out any of your buddies are having bad thoughts, I want you all to think of this."

Leaning in, she whispered to O'Brian. "I'd hold still. Don't want to make this messy." Cort took one final moment to reflect. _Do I want to take things this far? Yes, I think so. Lot less messy than just up and shooting them. Better this way. More humane. Preventative. Palliative_. Sighing as she reached a decision, she smiled contentedly, sat on his legs to pin them down and then drove the knife into his gut with a vicious snap of her arm, pushing so hard the flesh tented in around the hilt. It was out a split second later, a Stimpak already draining in its place, the wound healing back up in moments into the same slim white scar.

O'Brian screamed into the rag as everyone else started talking over each other, lashing Cort with insults or yelling for help. They stopped dead as she pulled out the depleted syringe and then stabbed him a second time, again pulling it out instantly and replacing it with another Stimpak. The knife blurred in and out twice more in rapid succession before the new syringe had drained halfway, more than enough to heal him entirely. O'Brian started sobbing as Cort arched back to level her gaze at the rest of them, looking pleased as they remained silent.

"Nobody who matters will believe you if you tell them I did this. You don't have any proof or personal currency to rely on. There's two, three more of you that have surgical scars that everyone knows about, along with some brand new busted noses and one beat to shit wrist I can have a hell of a good time with. I will do _anything_ to protect the few good people that are still here, to give them a chance to finally _do_ good, so you _will_ do I what I want; it's just a matter of how much you want it to hurt. So do all of you understand? Going to play nice, help each other to remember to?" She reached over to grab Officer Richards' broken wrist and started squeezing when they just kept staring at her, baring her teeth and slamming her other hand over his mouth when he tried to shriek. _I wonder if this hurts half as much as when you shot Tom. I bet it doesn't hurt as much as it did for Mary, lying in her husband's blood and watching him die and knowing there was no doctor to come save them. _Cort closed her eyes, thought of Charon and wrenched Richards' wrist around, grinding the bones together until he passed out. She let go and turned back to the others, her voice rough and awful. "Or do I have to do this again and again and _again_-"

Wolfe started babbling. "We get it, I get it it's got I got it oh God."

"Good. Sensible of you." Still sprawled half over him, Cort pulled the wet rag from O'Brian's mouth, cleaning his stomach and her knife of blood, shoved those and the empty Stimpaks back into a pocket, then calmly redressed him. She looked around. "So, now that we have that out of the way, did any of you need medical attention while I'm here? No? You sure? Well, then. I've done all I can." Cort left the cell, stopping dead when she did. Gomez was already there, holding the splint in both hands and with a look on his face that she had never seen before. She felt a sick little smile form on her own, felt one more piece of her old life slip away and shatter. "I'm sorry. Be careful. Goodbye."

* * *

**Cort** and Dogmeat came out of the store room laden with packs stuffed with all manner of supplies and oddities. She had stripped the shelves, crates and bunkers with impunity, taking everything she thought she would need, things she wanted to have, and some things purely just to give to others, the idea of making them happy helping her to limp along through the various hurts and horrors that were trying to swallow her up. She had almost made it back to the Living Quarters when Butch suddenly fell in beside her.

He opened his mouth and delivered what he most likely thought was a smooth opening line. "So your dog's a walking suitcase."

She shrugged and kept going. "I noticed."

Butch sped up and turned around, walking backwards in front of her as she plodded along. "Look, Camilla Camel, will you hold up for a sec?"

Cort stopped and slumped against the wall, the idea of another delay making her feel mean and petty. "Shouldn't you be trying to get outside and finally find fame, fortune and a girlfriend?"

"Hey, I turn down dames left and right in here."

"Butch, your dames _are _your left and right." Cort snapped out at him.

"Kee-rist, aren't we catty. Don't you start in on me too."

Seeing how hangdog he looked, she relented a bit. "Look, I'm sorry, I'm having a shittier day than I expected. Amata-"

"Was a total cuntbeast."

She wrinkled her lip up at his language. "Classy, Butch. I was going to say she was my best friend."

"Hey, who needs people like Mutt-face when you've got friends like me?"

"Yeah. You're really not a bad one, at least not all the time. I appreciate your, ah, unique individuality." Cort smiled. _I appreciate that you kept being one, too._

Butch shrugged nonchalantly and smiled back. "Of course you do, baby. that's why we should get hitched."

Cort nearly slid off of the wall, a low-hanging pack jamming her knee open the only thing preventing it. "Wh-_what_?"

Taking the bald shock on her face for excitement, he carefully phrased his next words in his head before he said them. Cort flapping her mouth like a landed fish gave him plenty of time. _Alright champ, this is your chance. Appeal to the common sense, use words. Words always work on her, she's freakin' words with feet. _Flattery, being something he was so rarely blessed with, also seemed like a great thing for him to add in, sincere or not. Unfortunately, he had no idea how to deliver it."Well you're gettin' older now, arent'cha. You're going to want to settle down, find a man to look after you. One who still has all the original upholstery, knows just what you want to hear and how to say it."

Butch's behaviour forming into a pattern so bright and stark it was like a tracer round going through her brains with this last colourful addition, Cort finally clued in. "No. Oooh _no_. I am _not_ having this conversation. If I admit it exists, I'll just go crazy faster."

"Crazy for me, sweetcheeks."

She gave him a glazed look. "Have-have you been talking to _Alphonse_ about me?"

Butch crossed his arms and scowled, displaying an unorchestrated emotion for once. "That crackpot? Hell fuckin' _no_, I ain't had anything to do with him since he ran you off."

Feeling a mix of fatigue and crazy hilarity, she took a deep breath to quell the latter and rubbed a hand over her face for the former. "So let me just run on through this one more time. You want me to leave Charon and shack up with you."

"You'd be better off with me anyway." Butch winced and rubbed the back of his neck, trying to say something insulting without it being an insult. What to use, what to use. The ghoul was shitfuck ugly, possibly falling apart, so huge he might squash her, things might snap off in there... _Oh _hell _no. Try, try something philosophical, damnit_. "I know love is supposed to be blind and all, but-"

Cort cut him off, rapidly shaking her head. "No, nonono. You know what I've found love to be? It's a little fucking _ninja_, a teeny_weeny _ninja, that somehow has the emotional weight of a freight train, that sneaks up, infiltrates your soul and then coldcocks you when you least expect it." She lifted a hand up and pointed to the side of her head and mimed shooting herself. "Just, _bam_. Little ninja sniper, and you don't get a choice of who the bullet comes from." _Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought it would have come from him. Never will I regret it, either._

Undeterred, Butch tried bringing the only other thing he thought he had in his favour. "Hey, no today might be yes tomorrow, and you've said yes before. Second base, sunshine."

She glared at him as he grinned. "_We_ were _drunk_, and you barely touched them."

The grin got wider and distinctly cheeky. "_You _still _liked _it, and I still actually did."

Cort hedged, grimaced. "Okay, I'll cop to that. But the answer's still no."

He thought about it for a second, then shook his head. "Nah, I don't buy it. I've got more to offer, in spades. In all four suits, even. It's like, logical. You _have_ to go for it if it's logical."

Deciding any logic in this conversation had lit out for the coast about two seconds after it started, Cort went over all the reasons she could find to justify her choosing Charon over Butch, trying to select one that would shut him down for good. An emotional reason wouldn't do it, and she wouldn't delve into that with Butch of all people. Lauding Charon's superior skills wouldn't work, since Butch was of the firm opinion he could do anything. He just didn't 'want to' most of the time. _No, all he wants is for me to swoon and let him into my pant-_

Cort stopped, her expression going from thoughtful to blank to calculating. She dropped her eyes to his crotch and then back up to his. Butch had one full second to take her emerging smile as a compliment before she opened her mouth and stamped on his rising machismo like a little bug. "No, you don't."

"Just how do you figure that?"

"Because he's hung like a horse, Butch. A _big_ one. This girl ain't stepping out to ride a pony when she's got a Clydesdale at home." _Oh God, I feel shallow now. If this doesn't work, I'm just going to let Charon paste him. Fuck, I'LL paste him._

Butch sputtered indignantly as a red flush moved up over his face. "It's not how...it's how you use it!"

"Oh, I can tell you how he uses it." Cort gave him a lascivious look and crooked her finger suggestively. "There's this thing he does with-"

"SHUTTUP!"

"My thoughts exactly. Seeya around, Butch." Cort swanned around the corner and pronged down the hall like a pack Brahmin attempting ballet, quietly did a disgusted little shaky-dance with mimed _'bleah' _noises when she was sure he wasn't following, and booked herself back to Charon. Quiet, fussy, morose and abrasive, but definitely _not_ boorish or overbearing Charon.

She barged through the door as soon as it opened and planted herself hard against the wall, the momentum from the stuffed packs swinging her gently in place. Out of breath, she pushed out words in a tumble before he could get too alarmed at the entrance. "I appreciate you, a lot, whole _whole_ lot, more than _anything_."

Charon raised his eyebrows, looking mildly surprised for a moment before turning back to their belongings with a pleased expression. "Thank you. I appreciate you too, Cort." He started repacking things a little faster as she positively glowed in response. Every passage she made through the door seemed to result in a new mood swing, and so far this one was the most positive. After the fiasco everything down here had turned into(in some ways not as bad as the one he had expected, in others much, much worse), he wanted to end on a good note if at all possible. "Done. Can we get the fuck out of this batshit-burrow now?"

"_God_ yes. I got all the stuff I needed, and I am heartily done with goodbyes. If anyone else actually cares, they can find _me_."

* * *

**Butch **found her yet again as the Vault door was grinding to a halt, a slow swirl of dust puffing in from the cave outside. Cort slumped and nearly whined when she saw him. "Oh for Pete's sake Butch, the answer's still-"

He cut her off, jerking his head towards Charon. "Yeah, yeah, I _know_, I got the fuckin' hint_. _I want to talk to him, one on one."

Charon looked over at her blankly, and Cort threw up her hands, making a _'pfft'_ noise. "Entirely up to you. I'm done, I'm toast. Melba, even."

Butch rolled his eyes and pointed away. Cort rolled hers back and retreated ten steps, turning around and jamming her fingers in her ears for good measure. Once he was sure she wouldn't see or hear anything, he turned back. "Yeah, so, I guess you win." He stuck his hand out, then drew it back and yanked out his comb when Charon did nothing but stare at him witheringly. "Whatever. Well, hurt her and I'll kick your ass."

Charon idly watched him fuss his pompadour around. "I know of eight different ways to kill you with that comb."

"Maybe you do, but I'd still give it a whack." He fidgeted, looking painfully uneasy. "I'd _have_ to, man, there's no getting out of it. She's still a Tunnel Snake, one of the bros for life." Charon did nothing in response but tic his eyebrows in a fraction of an inch, and Butch snapped his shoulders back in a jerky shrug before swaggering off, tossing his last words over one of them. "Anyway. Have fun cracking mirrors and go fuck yourself."

Cort promptly turned around and walked back to stand beside the ghoul with a rather surprised and somewhat pleased smile on her face, having heard everything. "He's a self-absorbed _dick_, but he's not a terrible person, at heart. I suppose he wouldn't have been that bad?" She smiled wider and nudged him as he made a non-committal grinding noise. "Come on, let's carry on." They had made it to the top of the entry stairs before Amata suddenly appeared out of an access door, calling out for them to stop. Cort swore under her breath. "Shit, she used the Overseer's tunnel."

Amata ran up to her, breathless. "Cort?"

"Amata."

"I saw you on one of the monitors, I needed to see you before you left." Her brow furrowed up. "I thought you would have come to see me."

"Yes well, you were probably busy anyway, and I'm not wanted here, sooo..."

She crossed her arms, looking uncomfortable. "I told you I was sorry. We'll see about bringing you back in later. You're still my friend, Cort."

Cort tilted her head. "Yeah. I still appear to be me, don't I. Sunshine and bunnies. Let me teach you something about appearances, even though I shouldn't really have to. Not with the way this place really turned out to be. Always was, whatever. Doesn't matter." She made a clicking sound, and Amata tentatively smiled as Dogmeat came over and sat up in front of them, glad for the distraction. Cort didn't. "Dogmeat. Show Amata your game face, baby." Instantly the silly grin and lolling tongue disappeared as Dogmeat's lips curled up into a rictus so tight his nose bent back on his face, black claws arching as his paws stiffened and the toes splayed out, squealing against the metal decking when he dropped back to all fours. Spit flying as his tongue drew in and trembled, eyes rolling until the sclera shone white and garish, his hackles flared as he stretched his mouth open into a red, ivory-fanged maw.

Satisfied as Amata froze and went white as a sheet, Cort talked calmly over her dog's snarls and snaps. "Don't think for a second that I'm who I was, Amata. Don't assume that you know who I am on the inside anymore. And don't _ever_ ask me to come back here again. I just might, if you do." Cort crooned at Dogmeat to stop, shot a lazy salute at her old friend, and walked away without looking back.

* * *

**Cort** emerged into the growing twilight chased by sound of the Vault door closing behind them, her hands clapped firmly over her ears. She didn't remove them until the warning klaxon had ended, then stopped herself, shrugging out of her packs. "It feels like we spent forever in there." She turned, glancing at Charon. "I'm leaving here. For good."

"You've done it before."

She shook her head. "It's like... this time, instead of something being taken away from me, I'm cutting it out of myself. There's too much, I have to be too many things so it should feel _good_." She gave him a distant look, then started searching around the little clearing, picking up little bits of discarded trash and then throwing them away. "But it doesn't. It _hurts_." Coming to the left of the slatted door, she paused, then poked around under an outcropping and pulled free a scraggly tangle of long, loose black hairs that had been caught in a crack in the rock, holding it between her fingers and staring at it."'A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, and the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, and the dry stone no sound of water.'" Her face pulled into a vague frown. "'Only, there is shadow under this red rock.' I like red. I want to walk until I don't know my own face. It won't take long, can we do that?"

His gut suddenly feeling very, very cold, Charon grabbed the first response he could think of. "What about Gob."

She tilted her head towards him, her voice thick with confusion. "What about who?"

"You told Gob we'd be back. You told that fucking _bartender_ that we would be _back_, Cort." Cort spent a few seconds that felt like an eternity to him looking blankly up before her face suddenly snapped into motion, the rest of her joining in to grab up her packs and start down the escarpment a moment later.

"Right! Oh, let's hurry, I want to see how both of them are doing, I hope nothing happened while we were gone."

Watching the forgotten tangle of old hair float to the ground, Charon scraped a deep gouge in the dirt with the heel of his boot, buried them in it, then pointedly fixed his eyes on the horizon and followed. "No, Cort. Nothing's happening."

* * *

_Excerpt in the last section where Cort recites is part of 'The Waste Land' by T.S. Eliot, for the curious._


	46. I Can't Get No Relief

_Thanks for all the lovely reviews peeps, and holy crap DaLover, you just barrelled through the stories. ;)_

* * *

**They** reached Megaton in the early evening, nearly jogging the final mile as Dogmeat started making the strange yelps he had before the last dust storm. Running up the hill, Cort nearly brained Mickey with a pack of purified water she had lugged out for him, dumping it in his bathtub on her way to the gate. She looked up as a voice floated down, nearly falling over her own feet.

"Lucky lucky kid, I need to close up in a couple hours! Get on in!"

"Thanks Stockholm!" She turned to Charon. "How long do we need to put up with these? I don't like them, they get into my head. There's too much in there already."

He thinned his lips briefly before replying. "None or a few, it's different every year. You'll know it's over when it finally-"

"Gob!" Spotting him anxiously hanging out between the inner and outer gates with his face tilted up towards the sky, Cort sprinted the last several feet and crashed straight into the bartender, both girl and ghoul going down in a tangle of loaded packs and limbs. Gob's muffled voice drifted out from somewhere under the heap.

"Ow. I'm so glad I waited for you. Ow."

Cort sat up, her helmet tilted crazily to one side. "I've got stuff for you!"

"Ow, ow-wait. Stuff?"

"Come see!" She trotted ahead, Dogmeat at her heels, Charon pausing to wait for Gob to pick himself off the ground.

Dusting himself off, he gave the bigger man a diffident look. "So, ah. How did it go?" Charon gave him a sour one in reply. Unperturbed, Gob gave an affable shrug back. "That good, huh?" He straightened in surprise as the other ghoul's expression changed into something approaching unease.

"No. Now do what she told you and fucking move your ass." Gob raised his eyebrows and started into the town after Cort, curious but wisely keeping silent for the moment. Dawdling to give the other ghoul a chance to get there ahead of him, Charon had made it halfway to the house before he was called to a stop again.

"Charon!" It was Simms, shouting down from one of the ramps and looking like he needed to go in a dozen different directions at once. Everyone else in the town seemed to be trying to do exactly that, arms full of various supplies and bent on completing whatever preparatory or personal tasks they needed to finish before the bad weather started. Simms ducked briefly and kept talking as someone went by with a large sheet of metal that nearly took his head off and was nearly taking them airborne. "This should be the last one according to Moira's weather doo-dads. I'm not expecting trouble, but if any fool raiders decide to take advantage of what comes after for an ambush, I'll need to call you and Cort out for it, her for fighting and fixing both." Knowing Cort had previously agreed to this arrangement, Charon nodded immediately, then resumed walking as Simms was accosted by the entire Stahl family, who were lugging a huge snarl of rubber hosing. "Good! Walter's waiting for you down in the bowl."

Entering the house, he immediately rolled his eyes. Both Cort and Gob were sitting on the floor with their shoes off, snickering and wiggling their toes in the new socks they had put on. She had brought him back as many pairs as she could stuff into a pack.

Cort looked up at him pertly as Wadsworth puttered by, bent on storing the things she had dumped off of her and Dogmeat. "What? Socks are _cool_. Aren't they, Gob."

Gob sighed and answered her, sounding almost blissful as he reached for his sneakers. "_Yeah_. It looks like we have brand new feet."

Charon rolled his eyes again to hide the relief he was feeling and shrugged his packs off as she mumbled something to Gob about him not getting it, wanting to make sure all their supplies were ready to go just in case. It had galled him to hand her off alone to the other man for even a moment, but he hadn't known if being present himself would have suppressed any positive interaction Gob might provide for her, something he couldn't find the stomach to risk. Listening to Cort giggle, he supposed that while it was another reason for him to feel indebted, it also hadn't really been a bad thing, her getting attached to the nervy little twit. Snorting, he hauled out a squat box of Rad-X from the first pack and moved to put it away. _If I can stand _Barrows_ helping her, Gob should be easy. At least he's not trying to fucking snip bits off of her._

Cort glanced around as she started stripping her armour off, still sat on the floor. "Where's Nova?"

Gob brushed his hands down his shirt, looking bashful and unconsciously trying to make himself tidy. "Oh, ah. Back at the saloon making sure everything's still tied down."

Cort grinned devilishly, trying to decide how to tease him without making him too uncomfortable when Charon turned from the lockers by the door where she kept anything even remotely related to medical use, sounding testy.

"Where the _hell_ are those boxes of field dressings I brought back? Rob-Wadsworth? The two blue boxes."

Wadsworth deviated on his course to reply, but to Cort first instead of Charon, his tinny speech lowered to a discreet level before finally addressing the big ghoul. "I have hidden them in the back of your desk, Madam. And may I say Sir is very very thoughtful. It is quite nice to see a gentleman so secure of himself to bring back Madam's...necessities."

Cort ticced an eyebrow up as her butler returned to his task. "What..._what_? Field dressings?"

Gob picked himself up as Cort gave the stairs a look that implied that they were an insurmountable object that was possibly out to get her. "I'll go get them for you."

"They were in your drawers, I thought you would want them for the lunchboxes." Charon expanded his description as she continued to look blank. "Two cartons. This big." She gave him a slow blink, and he sighed. "I put them in _your _pack, Cort."

* * *

**Having** removed everything from their own packs and organized it neatly before starting, Charon had begun by gathering up the two things she had fixated on immediately. He picked up the dilapidated toy bear and gave it a critical look, then carefully stowed it in Cort's pack, using it to cushion her pictures. However illogical and childish it was, it made her happy, so in it went. That finished with, he moved to the racks of drawers. James' belongings he left alone, not knowing what she would like of it.

Pulling out the first drawer revealed all of her underwear and socks, and he primly folded everything, using the little bundles to pad around the edges of the picture frames, then stooped to check the lower drawers. Vault suits, which he left, and a few books, which he took. Wedged in the back of the bottom one behind a few dresses that looked like they had been worn once and stored in the drawer with an extreme amount of unfolded prejudice were two cartons. He pulled them out, frowning. 'Vault-Tec Sanitary Product' was printed across the front, alternately labelled with an A and a B, and a rather dry set of notations underneath stating that both sets had contents capable of dealing with light to heavy flow. His frown deepened as he popped the tops of them open and examined the folded contents of one, the rows of tubes in the other. Carefully unwrapping one of each, he immediately put the first aside and spent a moment puzzling over one of the tubes, then rolled his eyes, chastising himself for being so dense.

"Specialized for bullet wounds, you idiot. Why the fuck didn't they just put that on the front, no wonder these shitheads drop like flies in emergencies if this is how they label field dressings." That inane little puzzle figured out, Charon carefully placed them on top of her pictures and resumed packing, wanting to finish and get her the hell out of her old home. There really wasn't much to mark her life here, anyway.

* * *

**Not** having had to make use of those particular feminine items for more than half a year, overtired and just off a long emotional slog, the other shoe still didn't drop for Cort, and Charon patiently kept going as Gob helpfully came back down the stairs with the objects in question, both talking at the same time. "One had pressure pads and the other had plugs for bullet wounds. The boxes said they could sufficiently handle any level of bloodflow...Cort?"

"_Heeey_, I think I heard Carol talking about these with Greta once, both of them said not having to use them anymore was one of the good things about being a ghou-"

Things clicked in for both Cort and Gob at the same moment, and she clapped her hands over her mouth as the bartender flung the boxes away like he had been scalded, Charon picking one up as it tumbled past him and looking irritated.

"Fuck, how about I come over to the saloon and kick your shit around, I think I'd prefer..." Both of them lost it entirely on him at that point, and Charon gave each of them a glare in turn, completely exasperated. He damn well _knew_ he had just missed something spectacular, and whatever it was he had apparently stepped right in it for good measure. "Oh for _fuck_ sakes, just explain it and get it the hell over with."

Cort screeched. Gob fumbled.

"Aunt Flo!"

"It's, they're for-"

"Crimson tide!"

"You know, with the _down there_ thing-"

"Montezuma's red-venge!"

"That, ah, _girls_-wait, _what_?"

Cort made a high _'eeeeee'_ing noise and started pounding her fist against the floor.

Gob sighed, jammed his hands in his pockets and stared at the ceiling. "Because it's ah, got to do with _down_, you know, for-" He let out his remaining breath in a nervous woosh and bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. Maybe if he didn't make eye contact he could still deny what this conversation was about and who he was having it with. "So glad I waited. They're for when girls go on the rag, periods, that time of the month oh sweet Jesus I'm stopping now."

Finally having gotten a straight explanation, Charon's face cleared. "Oh. Why the fuck is _that _setting both of you idiots off?"

Gob shot Cort a dirty look as she continued to be absolutely no help at all. "Because it's meant for _that_, and _there_."

Charon held up the box and frowned at it. "So? Blood coming out of a hole is blood coming out of a-"

Gob threw up his hands and made for the door as Cort somehow found enough air to whoop at the top of her lungs. "Okay I'm done. I'll see you nuts tomorrow."

Cort rolled over and flapped an arm as he left, the best she could do. Charon crouched in front of her and waited until she stopped heaving like a bellows, then raised his eyebrows in question. Obliging, Cort carefully explained the concept of the societal taboo associated with menses, amazingly managing not to blush for once. "So. That's why that happened." Finished, she plucked the box out of his hands and tossed it onto the couch.

Oh." He frowned slightly. "That's incredibly stupid."

"From your lips to God's ears." Cort picked herself up and gave him a thoughtful look. "I think Gob's going to be alright." She opened her mouth again, then stopped, getting a distant look on her face. "It's nice he can be." She shook her head and started upstairs.

Charon followed her hopefully and hooked a finger into her belt, giving it a gentle tug. If he could keep distracting her, maybe... "So what now?" He didn't get quite the response he was hoping for.

"Oh." Cort turned and gently plucked his hand loose. "Just...occupy yourself somewhere, or something. I don't want to be around anybody right now. Just for a little while." She let out a hard little sigh, darted forward long enough to kiss his cheek, and then disappeared into the bedroom with Dogmeat, shutting the door behind her. Charon stood for a moment, listening to her shoving the beds back together, rattling a container of something, then frowned as her Pip-Boy started up, playing out the recordings James had left behind. He reached out for the doorknob, stopped, then let his hand drop back down. Shaking his head, he went downstairs and sat at the workbench. Disobeying never made anything better, there wasn't anything that needed to be made better at any rate -there _wasn't_, no, definitely _not_- and grenades wouldn't make themselves. Charon sat perfectly still for a long moment, listening to the muffled voice of a dead man drifting down from above, then pulled over the pencil and pile of scrap paper he had set out. He would make an effort to improve on what she had given him; he would do better. He could do that. That would make her happy. That would help fix things.

* * *

**Cort** listened to all her recordings, including the new one she had found from their first night in Vault 101, then turned her attention back to the fat little bottle of Chlorpromazine she had taken from her pocket. She bit her lip, staring at the antipsychotic drug sitting in her hand. _Sedatives didn't work, but then sleeping isn't a problem, is it. It's what's in there. The big old crazy elephant in my brain I don't want to look at. God help me, I hope I don't end up having to take whatever amount Freddie's doping on._ Cracking the seal, she shook out the recommended amount printed on the label and then checked her Pip-Boy, immediately frowning. _Cripes, it's listing over triple this. Even the stuff in the Vault is starting to go off. Well, good thing I've got you, little buddy! _Cort kissed the screen by way of thanks, shook out a few more pills and then downed them dry, gagging a bit. That done, she hid the bottle in a rip in one of the mattresses and went back downstairs to wait, already feeling better. _If I face it, I can fix it. That's all I have to do._

Charon was bent over the work bench, alternately tinkering with the parts of the grenades he was making and scribbling on bits of paper. Curious and noting that Wadsworth had finished up everything else that could immediately occupy her before shutting himself off, Cort walked up to watch him instead of finding herself something to do. She had never seen him have a real chance to be left to his own devices, and it seemed that he was keeping himself as busy as she did out in the Wasteland.

Down the edges of the schematic she had bought him were fresh columns of notations in precise block lettering; a list of different yields, the correlating blast radii, and the expected number and type of casualties. She peered over his shoulder at the small pile of loose scrap paper, all covered in the same tiny, tidy script. It appeared that he was currently trying to figure out the best combination of ingredients to produce something akin to napalm in effect, focusing on burning people instead of death by concussive force or shrapnel. Looking at the complex string of equations, a small scribble next to them about the best way to take out a group and still leave it intact for interrogation, she felt her chest tighten. _So smart. Oh Lord, he's so very, very smart._ For the first time, Cort wondered who Charon could have been if he had been allowed to grow up as the person he was born as, some nameless, brilliant man who had had the chance to mature to adulthood unmolested, instead of a boy who had been obliterated by a nameless group of monsters to make a brilliant killing machine. Lost in increasingly slow thought, she was slightly startled when he leaned back into her, his pleased voice rasping out.

"Thank you. This is proving to be very informative."

"You're welcome. I'm glad. Come to bed?"

He turned around to face her, mildly surprised. "You want to go..." Charon hesitated for a moment so brief it was almost non-existent, searching for a tactful substitute for the word 'voluntarily'. She would normally push herself until she was ready to drop. "This early?"

"Yeah. I'm sleepy. It's been a long day."

He snorted, pushing up from the bench and stretching. "Fuck. Long everything."

"Yeah." Grabbing him by the hand and tugging, she smothered the guilt she was feeling with the idea that maybe she could at least give him a night of uninterrupted sleep. "Come on big fella, we're home. Let's go lay in as long as we want."

* * *

**Even **with what happened to her, Cort might have made it if Dogmeat hadn't landed on Charon's chest with all four feet and dug in the sixteen sharp claws that came with them. Surging up with a pained bellow, he located whatever it was he definitely had to now rend apart, realized it was the dog who had poked him full of bloody holes, added in the very pertinent fact that said dog was _panicking_, and promptly shifted rage into a more productive flood of alarm. The bed was empty.

With Dogmeat whining and running to and from the both of them, it was easy enough for Charon to find her slumped at the top of the stairs. She was shivering and babbling to herself in time to each trembling fit, her eyes darting around as the wind buffeted against the house.

"Yesterday upon the _stair_ I met a girl who wasn't _there _she wasn't there again _today_ oh how I wish she'd go _away_." Spotting him, she slammed her head hard against the wall and let out a laugh halfway to a wail. "No, _nooo_, you're not supposed to be awake." The wind rose into a screech, and this time she did wail.

Grimly accepting that this wasn't a problem he could shoot and have done with, Charon slung his shotgun over his back, dropped beside her in a position that would make it easy for him to dart a hand in between her head and the wall, and reluctantly asked the question he was now realizing should have been voiced ages ago. "You're not...something's wrong. With you. Isn't it."

She laughed again, high and bitter. "Yes, there really, _really_ is. Thank you for noticing." She shuddered, hard, and Dogmeat whimpered. "I'm sorry he got you up. I didn't want you up, I just couldn't stop shaking."

"What do I do." Charon looked around, trying not to panic. He could fix this. She was sick. She had brought all kinds of things back from the Vault's clinic. There would be something in that. "I can bring you something. To fix it. Tell me what I need to bring you."

She pressed her head against the wall. "No. I don't need to take anything else, I did this. I know what it is."

"_'Else'_?"Feeling a sick heat form in his guts, Charon reached out and grabbed her shoulders, turning her back towards him. "What did you _do_, Cort?"

"I took...took some pills. It's fine. Alcohol and Med-X didn't work so I took some pills...from Dad's supplies. They're for stopping it."

Charon came within an inch of shaking the living daylights out of her, pulling away and clenching his hands into fists at the last second. "For _what_? Stopping WHAT? Fuck _sakes_, you're doing it again, aren't you? Cort, you _promised_ me!"

Cort forced herself upright as his voice cracked and grabbed hold of his face, putting all of her scattered will into making her eyes connect with his, her gaze and grasp slipping away after a handful of words, and he caught her as she collapsed. "_No_! No, it's not that, never that, ever again. It's for the nightmares, it'll stop them...I made sure it was the right..." She trailed off, her eyes glazing over. "It's fine, I feel fine now. Everything's just fine. "

Charon felt his chest freeze up as she seemed to look right through him, a horrible resemblance to what she had been like at the Citadel. "Cort, don't do anything like this again. _Please_."

Seeing him through the comfortable, suffocating haze she had managed to get around herself, Cort slowly nodded, hoping it was the right gesture. She thought shaking her head might split it open and let her thoughts tumble out, and she couldn't let him see all of those, spread out like jackstraws on the floor. "I won't try anything like this again, I p-promise. I'm sorry. I'm so...sorr..."

"_Cort_?"

Searching for and finding one of his hands, she gripped it weakly. "It's alright. It'll wear off soon. I'll flush myself out if I got hooked again once I...something, again. I don't think I will, it's the first time I've...but remind me. I'm just...everything feels so nice right now, I don't have to worry. You're okay. We're okay. Just don't let anyone see, and it'll be fine, I thought it would be fine if nobody saw, if I didn't let myself see-"

Charon held her tighter as she suddenly went from spasming to boneless, losing herself back in the thousand-yard stare but keeping her hand solidly in his, her thumb brushing repetitively against his rough palm over and over to let him know she was still there. Picking her up, he carried her back to the bed and pulled her close, not knowing what else he could do. Burying his face in her hair, he asked the question that had been plaguing him for so long out loud, finally voicing it and making it real, still not expecting an answer. "Why can't I _fix _this?" He started as her voice piped up in response, sounding suddenly clear and unslurred.

"You can't fix what isn't broken." Cort closed her hollow eyes and slept.

* * *

**It** was almost a relief this time to wake up to her screaming for him, and Charon reached out to comfort her, immediately darting out of the bed and grabbing up his shotgun when he didn't find the warm little body he was searching for; there, or in the room. _Oh no, oh fuc__k, please not again-_ "CORT!" He skidded to a halt when he reached the threshold, letting his shotgun drop back down. She was pressed up against the corner between their room and the spare, hands clenched on her repeater and eyes wild, staring at the ceiling and snarling.

"Don't just stand there like an idiot, help me! This is some new shit they're trying, they're bombing us with something!" A great, rumbling boom suddenly cracked out overhead, making the whole house vibrate like a discordant kettledrum, and she let out a terrorized shriek, bucking away from the metal wall at her back to thump against him.

"Who-" Charon blinked and stroked her hair as she burrowed her face into his chest, the other sounds around him finally sinking in after the clap of thunder brought them to the forefront of his attention. There was a steady, rhythmic hammering on the metal roof, one that he had taken note of immediately when it started an hour before and then dismissed as non-threatening, letting himself drift back into sleep listening to the rare, soothing rattle. It had happened again with the first distant clap of thunder, and he had done the same thing, knowing it was nothing to be concerned about. He shook his head and barked out a laugh, relieved and amused and grateful for the feeling of both, even with her so distressed and knowing it was another oversight of his that had caused it. _Any _reason to be happy in the face of what had just happened was a rare and precious thing. "Cort, that's just a cloudburst going on, it's a thunderstorm. I'm sorry, I should have warned you." He simplified the concept for her even further, not seeing any comprehension on her face. "It's _rain_, jackass."

Finally loosening her grip on the rifle up as he continued to pet her, her eyes went even wider as he gently took it away and picked her up. "_Rain_?"

* * *

_The line of poetry that Cort babbles out is an alteration of the poem 'Antigonish' by Hughes Mearns._


	47. Breathing Space I

_The next two chapters can be thought of as housekeeping, in a way. These are things that need to be done before the next set of big things happen, and just things that happen inbetween. There isn't much action, there's a lot of fluff, so any of you thirsting for the opposite could potentially skip them, but there are things that will really only make sense later if you read on through, answering some 'why?'s and making more. There's also more of me going off on my own tangents and playing around, which hopefully won't turn any of you off, but then I figure you're not reading my stories because I write 'em like a game guide. ;)_

_What big things? Kids, if you think I've put them through the wringer before now, you ain't seen nothin' yet._

* * *

**Things** got better again then; the gently irradiated water pouring out of the sky seemed to wash away part of the burden Cort carried. She spent as much time as she could outside, Charon and Gob taking turns to drag her into shelter whenever her Pip-Boy started putting out a disgruntled squeal, returning to enjoy themselves for as long as they could after dumping her inside. She would stay only until she had finished the required amount of Rad-Away, then run back into the drizzle, or torrent, or deluge, delighted by whatever behaviour the precipitation was currently expressing, squinting up and blinking as the drops pattered onto her upturned face. It was a happy blur of days spent wedged between both ghouls, talking the hours away or just watching the sky, and every night meant tumbling into bed with Charon, irradiated and wet. With the world on pause for everyone else, Cort found herself in an untroubled island of time, until the eighth day dawned clear and she got to experience yet another new facet of the Wasteland's mercurial spring weather.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor in a tank top and pair of Brahminskin pants she had just finished hacking the legs off of, she put her knife back in her boot and turned to Charon, griping. "What IS this? It's hideous!"

Absorbed in fixing the suppressor for her pistol, he looked blankly at her for a moment until she rocked herself on the floor and pulled a face at the sticking noises her bare thighs made against it. "Humidity."

"I don't like this. I don't like this at all. This is extremely unlikeable. I hate it. Loathe, detest, abhor, despise, revile-WAAAARRGH!" Cort broke off and positively yowled, grabbed her bra through the front of her shirt with both hands and pulled it out and away from her chest, swapping her caterwauling for a relieved groan. "Oooh, _aiir_."

"It'll go away soon." Charon gave her a contemplative look as she flapped her hands back and forth, the action making her breasts do an absolutely intriguing set of maneuvers, then shook his head, deciding now wasn't the time. "Why don't you just leave that thing off?"

She gave him an evil look. "Have you ever had to run real hard while naked?"

"Yes."

Cort's eyebrows shot up at that. "Okay well. Asking about that one later. So how did the danglybits feel popping around like a yoyo, and how do you think it would have felt if they weighed a good couple of Goddamned _pounds_?"

He grunted. "Point."

"Yes. But I can still take it off for you later." She grinned and tugged at her shirt again. "Don't think that I didn't see you watching and thinking."

"Later?" Charon tilted towards her slightly. "What about right now?"

Letting out a resigned sigh, she stood up and strapped on her holster, sliding a spare 10mm into it. "Right _now_, I'm going to go play with Moira for a while. Want to come? She'd probably like to see you again." Cort held in a grin as the warm look he was giving her went out like she had thrown a bucket of ice on him. "Didn't think so." Halfway through the door, she stopped and called back again as Dogmeat darted out ahead of her, sounding nonchalant. "Oh, the filing cabinet upstairs? There isn't a key, it has to be picked. If you can get it open, you can keep the contents, which is to say you will own them, and I mean you, not me by proxy. Yanno,_ if_ you can pick it, fumblefingers." She grabbed her rifle and slapped the door shut before the outraged glare heading her way had a chance to hit her, and practically skipped herself to Craterside Supply, pleased at how she had set up her surprise for him. If anything would goad him immediately into action, it was that.

* * *

**For** form's sake and plain pure contrariness, Charon calmly ignored the desire to react to Cort's dig for exactly ten minutes, then not quite jogged up the stairs, any possible irritation that may have remained being pushed out by a rising surge of curiosity. Spotting a folded piece of paper stuck halfway into the top drawer of the filing cabinet, he pulled it loose and opened it, reading what she had scrawled.

'_I remembered you enjoyed making use of these. I want to see you do it more_.'

Carefully folding up the note, he tucked it into a pocket and pulled a bobby pin out from another, then set to work on the cheap little lock. Something he liked then, something useful was inside. He made a satisfied noise as the simple tumblers clicked over and grabbed the top drawer's handle. If he liked it, it would have to be some kind of weapon, or more explosive supplies, or maybe even-

Opening it, Charon blinked as a dusty, pleasantly spicy scent wafted up, and he looked in to see what his reward was.

Books. Almost half a dozen books and magazines of different sizes, some battered terribly and all of them yellowed with age but perfectly readable. He pushed the drawer closed slowly, not wanting to lose sight of the precious things, then quickly yanked open the next, starting to feel an uncharacteristically heady sort of excitement. More books. There was no hesitation for the next two drawers, which gave up exactly the same treasure. Cort had given him books; possibly all that she owned. He had never owned any, not that he could recall, but distantly, way down deep in the back of his mind, he remembered being read to. It was one of the only things he associated pleasant feelings with that he knew were entirely his own and not a conditioned response that had been drilled into him. _She gave me books. I can keep them, I finally get to keep them._

Any he had found had been quickly taken up by employers, either to hoard or more likely to sell off; on some gutwrenching occasions burned for fuel or even worse. Charon clenched his free hand into a fist hard enough to pop his knuckles, then forced it to relax. The book about things of 'R' had been turned into toilet paper. That particular experience had been what taught him to not so much read as devour the things whenever he spotted one, committing them to memory as fast as his eyes could strip the words from the pages.

His chest feeling maddeningly, inexplicably tight, Charon pulled one of the smaller volumes out of the last drawer and carefully turned it over again and again, not quite daring to open it yet. It had somehow taken everything in him to even pick it up, and he shook his head, staring over the rest of Cort's gift. _What the hell did I ever do to deserve this?_

* * *

**"Moira**?" Cort slowly walked into the empty supply store, then looked up as a series of clanging noises rang out from above. The shopkeeper's upside down head poked out over the edge of the balcony after another loud bang, wisps of loose hair floating out around her like an addled halo.

"Well hey there, stranger!"

Cort smiled as the woman clattered down the stairs and gave her a tight hug. "Hi, Moira. I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"Oh no of course not! It'll be nice to have company, my guard needed to go run his yayas out after being stuck in here for a week!" Letting go, she chattered on as she returned to the other side of her counter. "Poor dear doesn't like being cooped up and lonely, he was just about ready to climb the walls! I try to pay as much attention to him as I can when the bad weather hits, talk to him for ages, but I get so wrapped up with my experiments. Rains only once a year, don'tcha know!."

"Uh. Did he leave for good? Because that might be for the bes-"

"Oh heck no! He always comes back once he runs out of bullets. So! How are you doing? I'm so sorry about your father. It's amazing, the things you've been up to! No problems with your little talent? How's big, tall and brawny? Still living the irradiated American dream?"

"Thank you, and not really, and no, very good, and yes, I guess? Things are turning out well with my mutation, especially since I can use it to heal Charon too. Pretty useful, being able to irradiate him when he gets hurt."

As Cort's words hit her, Moira's chirpy voice slowed down and then dropped a full octave at the end. "Nifty! I can see how that would be conven...ient...wait you're doing _what_."

She shrugged. "I'm doing exactly what I said?"

"Oh." Moira sniffed and scratched her nose. "Well! That's new."

"Doesn't everyone do that?"

"Nooo, it just kind of sits in folks and minds its own half-life, no scampering about willy-nilly. If we emitted it we'd eventually kill each other by being in close proximity. What's the radius of effect?"

"Uh, it'll go through clothes, but I have to be pressed right up against someone. Why didn't anyone bring this up beforehand?"

"Well I suppose it never occurred to anyone to ask, it never did to me. I don't know what would put a person in a position to; if someone looks like they're sick off of radiation, _anything_, really, others tend to stay away out of self-preservative reflex. What about that nice Doctor Barrows you told me about, what did he think, or your other friends? Or your fella, for that matter? "

"I don't think Barrows noticed. He was...distracted." _Distracted by _me_ cutting my frickin' arm open for show and tell, and the only other ghoul who got close to me was poor Patchwork. Even if he said anything, nobody would pay attention, and Gob wouldn't know I was different for the same reason Charon doesn't._ "Nobody else got the chance to, I always cleaned myself out before going back to Underworld, and Charon hasn't had...um..." She waffled around searching for the most tactful option until Moira supplied one, following it up with another level-toned query.

"Anyone to compare you to, mmhm. Does it get lower if you leave it in?"

Cort thought about it. "Nooo, I don't think so. Sometimes I've kept it in me for hours, just in case Charon or I got hurt again."

"But spare bits dribble out of you in the meantime."

Cort spread her hands, starting to get exasperated and very uneasy. "_Yes_? Moira, what the_ hell_ are you driving at?"

Moira stalled for the briefest of moments before the dotty, cheerful attitude she normally wore came back in full force. "Oh, I'm not driving anywhere in particular, just roaming around! I suppose the leaving you but staying in bit makes sense, when I think about it!"

Cort eyeballed her, then shrugged. _It's not broke, so don't fix it. And do I really want to know? She could wind up jabbing me with God only knows what. _"Ooo_kay_, so getting back to why I'm here, I wanted to see if you had any Rad-Away left for Dogmeat and I, now that the rain's stopped. I didn't want to deplete your supply while so many other people were after it."

"I've got a nice amount socked away, sure! But why are you wasting it on your furry friend?"

"Because I don't want him to cook like a TV dinner?"

Moira laughed. "He won't no matter how long you set the timer for, just about! Dogs are next door to immune, they just excrete it out of themselves. Most critters do, except for people." She blinked. "Most people!"

"Wh-_what_?"

"Well how do you think there's even any animals left, sweetie? They can't go around poking in IVs!" She smiled down at a relieved and now somewhat rather smug-looking Dogmeat.

"But if he's giving it off like me, how come I never pick it up?"

"Oooh, well, when I said excretions, I meant, ah, excrement, so not quite like you." She brightened and started digging around under her counter. "I actually have a whole collection from multiple species!"

"THAT'S OKAY MOIRA." Cort decided the woman must have developed the ability to block any protests out, because she suddenly found herself looking at a tidy, handmade specimen box of carefully labelled butt-cookies, Moira holding it out and babbling happily over the strangled noise she was making at it.

"Figuring this out got me thinking about how they manage to do this, I'm not sure about the mechanics of it all, but that's actually how I developed my radiation treatment! I used dogs for that instead of Brahmin, since the anatomy was closer; leastways it was the right amount of stomachs! Man's best friend and all that, and my Yao Guai expedition didn't pan out precisely how I wanted it to. They get so testy when you get near their hind ends! So there's a fascinating process that I think goes on in the liver and kidneys, so I distilled the fluids from-"

"Waitwait_wait_." Cort stood there with her head slightly tilted, one nostril erratically twitching as her brain processed this new information, rather looking like she was attempting to mentally construct a fusion reactor out of tinker toys and paste while Dogmeat slowly tried to edge himself out of sight behind her legs. "You...you pumped me full of _dog bile_?"

"Oh, _no _honey." She paused just long enough to roll her eyes and give Cort a moment to feel relieved before blowing it all to hell again. "Not _just_ that, it was a cocktail of multiple bodily fluids and secretions! With my own formula thrown in, of course. Gave it a boost! Although it didn't work quite how I planned, pesky human DNA and all. I'm still really sorry about that."

"That's okay, Moira. I know you didn't mean any harm." Cort forced a smile. "Doesn't really matter considering who I'm with, huh?" On a roll and oblivious to the insincerity of her cheerful response, Moira chattered on.

"Initially, I started with sweat glands, I thought that was how they were excreting -"

"Please stop saying that word."

"-the radiation at first, and then well, it seemed like such a waste not to throw it on in! And then once I discovered their excrement was the-"

"_Pretty_ please."

"-real answer, I switched to digestive and eliminatory anatomy! Seems you got a pretty neat little side effect from it, haha! Just don't stand too close to the neighbours."

"Oh _God_. What _else_ did y-_this_ do to me." Cort stopped from verbally blaming her at the last second. _I agreed to be stuck with the shit, so whatever happens is my own damn the choice, eat the consequences. That's the way it works._

"Well, you tell me! I used internal things, so you'd probably notice internal changes! I used an olfactory bulb I had left over, so maybe something to do with your sense of smell, but many would most likely related to your digestive tract since the organs I fermented and drained were all-"

"I need to get back to Charon he was working on things and he likes explosives so my house might blow up I'll see you tomorrow and tell you stuff for your book I think something might detonate okay?"

Moira seeming to find this a perfectly normal excuse, she waved cheerily as Cort backed out so fast she was practically flinging herself from the building. "Oh. Sure! I've got some lovely dried tissue samples you'll just die over!" She scratched her nose again, looking out at the morning sunshine. "Huh! Glad I didn't tell her that the base culture medium was from a Glowing One I found last year. She looked kinda overwhelmed. Maybe later." Moira went back to her work, humming happily to herself.

* * *

**"Oh **God. Oh God. Oh God." Swallowing, Cort gripped the railing in front of Craterside Supply andstood for a moment, looking out over a slowly rousing Megaton and thinking very hard before starting to babble. "I will not lose my beans over this. I am the same person I was fifteen minutes and dozens of new white hairs ago. My chromosomes are no more squiggly than they previously were even though there might be a few more than forty-six but hey spares are fucking _great_ ohGodohGod_ohGod_." She hiccuped again, just once, and turned her attention to her dog.

Is _this _why you fell in with me so easy, back in that scrapyard? I smell a little familiar, way down underneath?" Dogmeat leaned in, snuffled at her knees, then sat up and gave an affirmative whuff, along with his easy, doggy grin. "All that barking I do with you is just for fun." The grin widened enough to let his tongue loll out, and she scowled as he slowly blinked at her, the brown eye closing a full second before the blue followed it. "Smartass. Let's go see how Charon liked his present. Then maybe we'll shave you. Like a _poodle_."

Coming back to the house, Cort carefully nudged her way in through the door, excited and expectant. Charon was sprawled over the couch, holding up a scuffed book in one hand and dangling a half-empty beer over the threadbare arm behind him with the other, the bottle quietly ticking back and forth. He looked comfortable and almost achingly normal sitting there; like a man finally home from work who now had all the time in the world and was using it to relax with a simple, favoured pastime.

"You got it open!"

He turned a page. "Mhm."

"What do you think? Do you like them?"

Charon put the beer down and scratched his side, shrugging and still not bothering to look up. Cort felt the wind fall out of her sails. He looked so bored it was edging into contemptuous.

"Oh. Okay." Crestfallen, she shut the door and quickly walked past him on her way to the stairs. Going back out wasn't an option with the way she was feeling now; she would just end up dragging someone into the pity party she was about to throw. Halfway to the stairs, Cort yelped as she was suddenly hauled backwards, a large hand gripping her belt and the other coming up to support her neck as she touched down in Charon's lap. Sprawled rather ass over kettle, she stared up expectantly. He stared back down, a pensive look on his face. "Uhm. You wanted my attention?"

"Yes."

"You were playing possum."

There was a pause as he checked his mental dictionary for this archaic idiom and found it. "Yes. I know what I think. I don't know what to say. How to say it."

"That's alright."

His lips twitched. "So I'll show you instead."

"Show me ho-YEEEP!" Cort had time to tick an eyebrow up before she was squealing and flailing around, both her hands caught up in one of his and the rest of her caged by his long legs as he tickled her, the ghoul only letting up when tears started streaming from her eyes. She caught her breath after a few moments and several spurts of giggles, during which Charon manhandled her around in his lap, setting her back against his chest before reaching out to retrieve his book.

"Want to read?"

"What?" Cort wondered what he had chosen; there had been a few military novels in there, including one about the Crimean which had seemed particularly bloody and she thought would be fairly enjoyable for him.

Charon grunted out a reply, searching for his page. It had been just after she had left-_aha_. There it was. "Jane Eyre."

Cort was surprised enough to twitch slightly. "Uh. Do you like it?"

"I like her." Bringing it up in front of her so they could both see, he paused. "Have you read it? I can start over."

"No, I know it. We can keep going from here."

He gave one of his brief, brilliant smiles as Cort snuggled into him, pleased that he wouldn't have to delay finding out what happened next. "Good. Let me know when I can turn the page." He kissed the top of her head. "You can tell me what the odd words are. Having to skip over or guess at them was a pain in the fucking ass."

"Okay. We'll finish the whole thing, maybe another, and then go out to Vault 92, hmm? We can make it a routine, and everything. Read a book or two, go exploring. Rinse, lather, repeat."

"Yes. I'd like that."

* * *

**The** next day, Charon spent the morning patrolling the outskirts of the town after asking Cort for permission to go wandering around, ostensibly to make a tactical survey of the surrounding viewplanes. What he was really attempting to do(aside from dutifully taking a genuine reconnaissance of the landscape) was an ancient and perilous task that men had been performing for time out of mind: frantically trying to find something decent to use as a present for his girl. Rather traditionally, he was also failing miserably at it.

_Damn bracelet was a lucky fluke. How the hell do people do this. How the fuck do I match what she gave me._ Kicking a can so hard it spun through the air in a blur, Charon spat to the side and did one final check of his surroundings before heading back in, completely disgusted with himself. Nearly anything Cort wanted, she was capable of getting herself, and the one thing she _couldn't _get, a simple full night's sleep, wasn't something he could give her. His best idea, or at least the one that was the least pathetic in his mind, was to go out and crush one of her enemies, drive them into the dust before him, hear their fruitless lamentations and remember every word so he could repeat them back to her. Bringing her the head of an Enclave officer, or even several troopers would be _perfect_, but she would never allow him to take the risk, or worse, want to come along. He was having severe misgivings about Cort's readiness to face their next encounter with the group as it was. He spat again. _That's not a problem today. _Your _problem is you're too fucking _stupid_ to find one damned thing to give her._

The hell of it was, if he asked her what she wanted she would probably tell him he didn't need to do anything in return at all, and somehow he thought that might make him feel even worse. No, he would have to find something, something special, which unfortunately the entire damned world seemed to be extremely short on. Or at least the somewhat circular portion of it he was currently tramping flat was. He had found a cache between some rocks and gutted that, but a spare sniper rifle and a Stealth Boy weren't exactly things he could be proud of bringing back.

Charon slowly walked back into the town, sparing a curt nod towards Stockholm as he dropped an arm in a lazy wave. Something colourful would be good, but where would he find something colourful in a fucking desert? The only things still brightly tinted he had seen of late were her pre-war dresses back in the Vault, and the idea behind giving a gift was to make her _happy_, not piss her right the hell off.

Empty-handed except for the things salvaged from the cache, he came up to the house feeling positively gloomy. One of the roaming traders might have something, but he would need caps for that, and even if half of them were his, taking them without asking-

Charon froze as a rapidfire series of hissing, guttural _'whooouagh'_ noises suddenly sounded out through the door and smacked into him like a hit from a .44, quickly followed by a high-pitched, terrified whine. He had bashed the door off its hinges an instant later, shotgun to his shoulder and eyes wild, his mind screaming as he bellowed out a wordless challenge. _Deathclaw no here HOW kill it fuck KILL IT Cort NO help shoot now WAITYOU'REGOINGTOKILLCORT!_

Heart pounding a mile a minute, Charon dropped his shotgun so fast he nearly lost his grip on it and collapsed back against the wall. "What the _hell _are you _DOING_?"

Cort and Dogmeat were both looking over to him with startled expressions, Dogmeat wheezing out the last of an exaggerated whimper and Cort coughing a bit as the loud chuff she had been in the process of making caught in her throat. She slowly dropped her arms down from the threatening pose she had had them raised in, wobbling a bit as she tried to steady herself from her perch on the couch.

"He's pretending to run away and I'm trying to make Deathclaw sounds to prove I'm not a dog?"

Knowing any further explanation he got wouldn't resolve anything, Charon didn't ask why or try to argue, just carefully focused on trying to quicken the departure of adrenaline out of his system. "Oh. Right. Of course."

"Am I getting good at it?"

"Good enough for me to nearly _shoot _you, you little fucking _bast_-" Charon drew in a ragged breath and let it out slowly, rubbed his free hand over his face and went back outside. "I need air."

Hopping down from the couch, Cort smiled happily and followed along, leaning over the railing next to him. "Excellent! 'Nother question; you can eat anything, right, no matter what condition it's in? All ghouls can?"

He paused as a loud bang sounded out across the bowl. Homing in on the cause of it, a drunk stumbling out of the saloon, he dismissed it and slung his shotgun back over his shoulder, for once not liking the weight of it in his hands. They still didn't feel steady. "Yes. That said, I am _not_ participating in any fucking crackpot ideas you get involving Radscorpions."

"Nooonono, four-and-or-six legs good, eight legs _bad_." Cort debated just precisely how she was going to phrase things in a sufficiently obtuse fashion. Moira's comments were still bugging her, but not enough to risk giving Charon a reason to be angry with the dotty woman, particularly when he was already in a bad mood. "So...how did you find that Brahmin steak we had this morning?" That was a safe enough and rather pleasant topic to use while she figured out something more effective. She had enjoyed the rare treat; it had smelled positively wonderful and tasted even better. If he noticed any subtle differences, then she might get an idea of anything else Moira might have done to her.

Charon snorted, something he had done repeatedly that morning to clear his sinuses after breakfast. "Tasted like absolute shit, as always. I don't particularly care if it's raw, but _fuck_, Cort. You _really_ need to stop letting the meat we find start to rot before you decide we're finally going to eat it, just because we can both stomach everything that way is no reason to be..." He curled his lip. "_Untidy _about our food."

"Oh." Cort hiccuped slightly. "Do I smell like the dog?"

Charon gave her an odd look. "Only when you let him sleep on you."

Both of them looked up as an Atomite went by and waved, the girl giving them a coquettish smile. Grateful for the little distraction, Cort held up a hand to wave back, and then froze. Charon's head had turned to follow her too; specifically the wiggling part where legs and lumbar region conjoined. Once she had rounded the corner, he turned back to looking over the town, and Cort dropped her hand.

Charon had looked. Not just looked, but _looked_, a small, satisfied smile still on his face, and she suddenly realized that the girl's had only included the ghoul. Cort shot him a pained glance he couldn't see, then stared at her feet and mumbled. "You know if you ever..._want _somebody else, if you get tired of me, I'll understand."

He tilted his head around and gave her a stare that clearly implied that he thought she had finally gone completely off her rocker. "What the everliving blue _fuck _are you going on about?"

"It's not like you had many options before, but you can now, if you want something, something _else_, not just...because I'm convenient." Cort turned her face away in a fruitless effort to hide from him.

Charon took a moment to mull over things, then slowly shook his head as those things clicked into order for him, not sure if he should feel insulted, pissed off, or like comforting her, ultimately finding that he wanted to do all three at once. "You're an idiot if you have that low an opinion of me, or yourself. No one else deserves my attention." Letting out a frustrated sigh when she continued to look conflicted, he hoisted her up against him and hugged her, tugging at her hair as she tightly hugged him back. "Jackass. No one else deserves _me_."

"Think that much of yourself, do you?" Charon didn't respond for a long moment, startled by the question, and his own immediate answer to it. He stood there holding her for a minute longer, feeling her arms around his neck and her chest against his, patiently waiting for him to reply but not insisting on it.

"Now I do." He set her back down on the railing, then pulled an apple out of a pocket and pulled it in two with a loud snap, handing her half. "Eat."

Cort did so for a few minutes, thinking as she nibbled around the edges of the fruit. Finally swallowing, she paused, reluctantly examining herself before speaking up again and trying to sound nonchalant when she did. "Soooo...I'm really not ugly?"

Charon replied immediately. "No."

"But back in the Vault...nevermind. You don't get it. It doesn't matter, it's stupid."

He straightened up a bit, slightly surprised. This whole thing really _was_ about her appearance, and if had been eating at her for this long, it wasn't just a rare spike of insecurity. Biting into the other apple half to give himself a reason not to speak, he cast about for some way to respond. If she wasn't accepting what he was telling her like she normally would, he would need to fool or force her into it. _Well, she won't say yes to this_. "Am _I_ ugly?"

She scowled hard enough that the little line popped up between her eyebrows. "_No_."

"Then no, Cort. You're not either."

She shook her head. "You have to say that, though."

He cocked a rather sardonic eyebrow at her. "I only have to say something if you say I have to say it."

Cort looked up at this. "Really? You're not fibbing?"

"I can't directly lie to my employer, only obfuscate, and it took me forever to figure that one out. Lying...it feels..._unpleasant_ when I try. I wouldn't to you even if I could."

"Then why were you smiling at her."

Partly pleased that she had been jealous and partly because of why he had inadvertently caused it, he graced her with a rare, foolish grin. "Because you've _still_ got the roundest ass I've ever seen. I was feeling prideful of y-" Charon jerked as Cort suddenly thrust her fist at his face, her knuckles grazing his cheek. Hearing a loud, low-pitched smack, he thought she had actually connected for a moment, was able to wonder just what horribly catastrophic thing he had managed to do, before she brought her arm back down and calmly twisted the cap off the bottle of beer she was now holding. He whipped his head around. Behind him was the Wastelander who had stumbled out of Gob's saloon, staring at an empty bottle in his hand with no small amount of drunken irritation.

Cort took a long pull from the bottle and burped. "Nice, full one."

The Wastelander gave her a sullen, glassy-eyed look. "S'wrong one. Give it back."

"No. Mine now, you gave it to me. Actually, I think you were trying to give it to him." Cort held the bottle out towards Charon, not breaking eye contact. The ghoul took it from her, slowly drained it in a few long, deliberate swallows, then handed it back.

"Fuggin' rotbags and whores evverwhere. I get you, I won't miss with this one."

Charon sneered while surreptitiously shifting himself to block any remaining potential path to Cort. "You couldn't hit your own sack with your dick."

The drunk was hauling back to throw the other bottle when the Atomite who had passed by earlier suddenly landed on him in a flying tackle, shouting out a squeaky ringing battle cry. Both Cort and Charon raised their eyebrows as the small blonde contorted herself in a rather dizzying maneuver, wrapped her legs around his neck, wrenched him to the ground and started yanking on his hair.

Cort raised her voice as the man started making his own high-pitched yodeling. "Well. This is different."

"No fucking shit." Charon grimly pressed his lips together as the drunk's other bottle suddenly went flying from a wild punch the Atomite had thrown, watching it tumble down to splash into the bomb crater. "I'm sorry. That was inexcusable. I should have seen that fuck."

"How? Neither of us have eyes in the back of our heads. Besides, I saw him coming a mile away. I wasn't going to let anything happen to you." She nudged him as he gave her a look that somehow managed to be exasperated and ashamed at once. "Don't worry. It's the two of us now, remember?" She grinned as an indignant whuff drifted up from behind her. "Three, I stand properly corrected. Anyway, that means that you _can_ relax sometimes."

Not in the mood for an argument over it, he jerked his chin towards the bowl. "Two more headed our way, definitely not relaxed."

Cort sighed as the mass of squalling limbs rolled down the ramp on the same path the bottle had taken, watched Simms and Cromwell running towards it, and decided making herself scarce would be the best way of preserving any remaining tranquility in her afternoon. "Uhm." She stared at the empty bottle in her hand. "Wanna go shoot at cans and shit?"

"I'll get the sniper rifle. Spot you five."

"Pft. With my repeater? I'll spot _you _five."

* * *

_No, Cort's not a dog, won't end up as one, or grow ears like Kemonomimi crap, if any of you were wondering. Fake 50's pulp magazine science aside, I'm not that ludicrous. ;) Also, I hate that trope. _


	48. Breathing Space II

_This segment turned into three, instead of two; I had more going on than I thought! The last bit will be posted tomorrow evening, about this time. As always, thanks much for the reviews/faves/alerts. :)_

* * *

**Charon **found himself confused.

He was standing with Cort in the Wasteland, which wasn't necessarily odd. What was odd was the fact that he had no idea where they were. It was familiar(he had been there before, many, many times, uncountable in their number, he _knew_ this, more than he knew his own name), but for the life of him he couldn't remember it. He frowned. He always rememembered where he had been. He always remembered everything he was supposed to.

Cort sighed, and he turned to her, pushing his worries away. It didn't matter. He had finally found the perfect gift for her. "Hold out your hands and close your eyes." She did, after giving him a sweet, questioning look. Charon reached up and pulled off what he had brought her, placing it in her cupped hands and smiling as she did, tugging in her lower lip in anticipation. "Alright. Open them."

She did, looking down. Anticipation became alarm, then horror, and she turned her face back up to him. Horror became fear. He looked at her hands.

His own skinned face was in them, nestled against her palms, the empty backward lids staring up at him. He could see a glimpse of eyelash through the gaping holes, set over a ghostly ridge of cartilage and a layer of thin, gleaming yellow fat. He looked back up to her, still mute in her fright.

"Oh. I see. I can fix it for you." Charon started pawing at himself, his armour sloughing off and then his flesh, piling it up in her hands as fast as it came loose. It fell off to the ground at her feet, burying them, and then her ankles, and then her knees, spreading out in a fan around her as it tumbled down, a breaking wave of gore against her legs, slippery strips of skin riding on the bloody froth like hellish seaweed. He pulled it from himself so fast it felt like it was shaking free, the recoil of loss making him shudder. He had stripped his arms and ribcage clean, was starting on his hips and thighs with bony wet fingers when Cort finally spoke to him.

"What is it. What is it, Charon. What is it."

He opened his mouth to tell her, and that was when he ripped out his tongue.

* * *

**Cort** woke up to a nightmare, but for once it wasn't hers. Charon was tossing around, his body spasming, a low strangled noise coming out from his throat. She clicked on her light and then shook his arm gently. "Charon? What is it? Charon?" Groggy and slow, it took her a few more moments before she put the pieces together, then another to accept them. "Oh, no." She reached out to give him another shake, then pulled her hand back, waffling. Waking him up was what she wanted to do, but if he came out of it too early...

_What if he's like me what if he doesn't think it's over when he wakes up, I don't know if he can pretend it's over._ He let out a sob. All reluctance fled at the sound of it, and she shook him with both hands this time, hard. "Charon, _wake up_." He sobbed again, a low, long cry that suddenly started breaking apart into more, and Cort shrieked. "_Charon, I order you to WAKE UP_!"

He shot out of the bed like he had been launched from it, nearly dragging her along with him as the blankets caught up around his legs. He staggered, twisted, and stopped, one foot floating a few inches above the floor.

"Charon?" He twitched and froze, not even breathing for a second, then turned around in an eerie, graceful pivot. Registering her and then recognizing her, he slowly dropped his foot back down, first the ball and then his heel making contact with the floor. They both stayed still, staring at each other for a full minute, before he broke away and untangled the blankets from himself, then sat down on the edge of the bed, pressing his hands firmly against his mouth. He could still feel the tendons slipping out from his throat and over his teeth, the sticky, cloying wash of blood.

He glanced to the side. Cort was still staring at him, still waiting for a response. He pulled his hands away just far enough for his lips to move. "What."

"Are you okay? You were-" _Sobbing, crying, his face is wet and I don't even know if he knows, don't say it, don't- _"Making an awful lot of noise."

Charon snapped at her. "You're not the only _fucking _one allowed to have bad dreams, Cort."

"_Fine_. Pardon me for caring." She flipped over and curled up into a ball, counting to herself. _Three, two, one..._

"Cort?"

_Gotcha_. She sat up again and turned back. "Yeah?"

"Do you ever think about what I used to look like?"

_Oh crap_. "Charon, what was your dream ab-" He snapped again, hard enough for her to flinch slightly.

"_Do you ever think about it_."

"Only once when I first met you. I do that with every ghoul, it's like a puzzle, I guess at their features using facial anatomy..." Cort dropped her head down and worried at her hands. "I'm sorry."

_Of course it would be a game for her_. "No, I am."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not particularly." He shook his head. "I'm fine now. Go back to sleep."

"No, you go. I'll watch you for a change." She shrugged sadly. "You know I'll just wake up again anyway. C'mere."

Feeling too tired and beat up to argue, he laid down with his head in the crook of her arm, drawing his legs up to keep them on the bed. "What if there's another one."

Cort settled herself against the headboard and clicked off her light, watching the fading ghost glow from it float in front of her eyes. "Don't worry. Mine can chase them away, they're scarier." _And they love you so._

* * *

**"Charon**, remember telling me you could teach me how to use Power Armour?" Cort gave him a sidelong glance, wondering if this new tack would spark his interest. He had been tense all morning, and she had taken him outside of the town again to see if that would help him relax. They were spending more and more time out of it as the days continued to peel off, not for any rhyme or reason beyond avoiding the press of people without having to coop themselves up.

"Yes."

"Well, I know we don't have any of that, but I've been thinking. What else could you teach me? I know there's a lot of stuff about explosives you've shown me, but what about hand-to-hand? Could you show me how to do that? Right now all I know how to do is..." Cort trailed off, rolling her hands around while she searched for the right words.

"Throw yourself at an opponent screaming like an idiotic, flailing ditz?"

"Thank you, Captain Compliment. Yes, basically that. Could you do that and be comfortable with it? I know I'd end up getting a few scrapes."

He thought about it for a brief moment. "Yes. Teaching you is different."

Cofrt fidgeted as he didn't move to get up. "_Will_ you?"

Charon grunted non-commitally and eyed her. Cort was capable of bringing down nearly any opponent she latched onto, but that was more a result of spiteful tenacity as opposed to any real skill, and the pure dumb shock her victims generally suffered from at the method of assault(it wasn't every day a scarred up batshit Vault girl launched themselves at you); she was more of a brawler than a fighter. She went at it with no real rhyme or reason, just looked for the softest spot she could find and started tearing. Once she got a hold of someone, there was no getting loose of her unless they knocked her out, and he was only really guessing at that, everyone else having died before getting the chance to sufficiently clock her one. Unfortunately, they managed to do just about everything else. She had been shot, clawed, bitten and stabbed without taking notice, and while she was in the midst of one of her berserker rages, none of them made any difference, until she calmed down enough to feel how hurt she was. Stopping that was nothing but an excellent idea.

He had considered it before, but this wasn't so much a case of teaching her something, which he knew was acceptable, but more that he would be implying she was doing things wrong. There was a great, great difference between showing someone how do to something new and training them out of their own established methods, particularly when those methods, even with how attritive they were, succeeded. But then, it was Cort. The real question here wasn't how would she react to him teaching her, but how she would react to him knocking the stuffing out of her repeatedly. Charon thought it might be personally. "You won't like me very much by the time we're through."

"You'll just have to make it up to me then."

* * *

**Cort** didn't like very much of anything after four hours of instruction, Charon having been absolutely relentless in an attempt to see just exactly what she might be capable of and for how long. She perfectly fucking _hated_ the ground, having gotten intimate with it on so many occasions she had lost count. Unsurprisingly, he was an unforgiving teacher; Cort simply hadn't noticed because until now, she hadn't been terrible at learning anything he taught.

"You're still getting too damned angry, Cort." Charon shook his head. The impasse he was facing had turned out to be the exact opposite of the one he had expected; instead of her getting upset at him for dumping her into the dirt, trying to attack him was making her pissed at herself. She would hesitate, or not put any force into her attempts, or even try to block him with any real conviction. It was making her nearly useless. "You're not going to hurt me, you can barely fucking touch me like this. Now calm down, get up and try again."

"Oh, get bent. Go jump in a lake."

"There aren't any lakes left."

"You could still get bent." Cort sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm not very good at this, am I."

"You can't be good at everything."

"_You_ are."

"It's nice that you think that."

"When I show you how to do something, it takes you less than five freaking minutes to pick it up."

Charon refrained from reminding her of just why he was capable of doing that, not wanting to make her feel any worse. He would have to figure out how to turn the entire process into a game. For now, distracting her with something else seemed like the best thing to do. "Well, then show _me_ something new now instead. I'm tired of making you eat dirt anyway."

"Oh, screw you."

"I already know how to do that." Thinking, he selected something he knew made her happy, and would keep her mind and mouth running for at least an hour. "Show me how to use the Infirmary, I don't know how. That would be useful."

"'Kay."

Once they were back at the house, Cort went through everything with him, then decided to take care of something that had been nagging at her since talking to Barrows about the blood he had taken, which had gone from being irritating to nerve-wracking after her rather enlightening discussion with Moira.

After drawing some of her blood and setting up a little array of chemicals and tubes, Cort fidgeted anxiously as she waited. She finally relaxed when a detectable result finally showed up in one of them. "Phew."

"What?"

"It's good, I'm still O-negative. I think. That was a lot pokier than I'm used to." Charon looked at her blankly. "It's my blood type. Here, let's do yours." Cort tied the tubing around the arm he obligingly held out, flicked her hand against the inside of his elbow out of habit, and then plunged an empty syringe into his rather conveniently exposed cubital vein, keeping up a companionable patter to distract him from the sting of it. She felt a brief spike of sadness as the action reminded her of James.

"There are four blood types, O, A, B, and AB, which can be negative or positive, there's a bunch of other diddly details too, but we'll keep it simple for now. Uhm, think of them like different factions of an army. O-negs like me can send troops _to_ anyone, and AB can receive troops _from _anyone."

Charon leaned in, sensing something useful. "What if the wrong one gets in."

Warming to the subject as he started looking genuinely interested(which probably meant he was mentally planning how to use the information to kill someone with it down the road), she rambled on. "Oh, it can kill them, or at the very least make things pretty darn nasty. Sometimes, and this is really, _really_ cool, if the person's got something specifically wrong with them or their immune systems, or they get a transplant, it can change entirely, like they were conquered. That's really rare, though." Withdrawing the needle, she spent a few moments fiddling with a fresh set of tubes and pippettes, then pulled out a couple empty packs and started filling them with her own blood.

"What are you doing now?"

"Taking blood out for Moira to play with." Cort rolled her eyes as he scowled. "What, you'd rather she get it out of me?"

"What do you think?"

"Well then, fussbudget. Me it is." When she was finished, she turned back to the tubes with Charon's blood and raised her eyebrows. "Huh. You're B-positive."

"Which means what."

"Well, increases the chances that some of your ancestors were from a particular part of Northern Europe. Pretty neat, really, that's more than a lot of people today know about their family-" Turning to him, the words froze in her mouth, seeing the strained look Charon had on his face. "Charon?"

He pushed up and away from the little collection of fluids she had laid out, heading for the stairs. "Let's do something else now."

"Okay." Cort watched him for a moment further, cleared her throat hard, then dumped everything out into the trash.

* * *

**Cort **woke up the next day stiff as a board and about as pleasant. One sarcastic quip about the ground probably feeling worse than she did was enough for her to send Charon out of the town to patrol around again. After sitting for close to an hour and not feeling any better, she thought about going out to get him, dismissed it since he might still be angry, going out into the town, dismissed that since _she _was still angry, then thought about jabbing herself with a shot of Med-X and curling up with a book. This seemed acceptable, and extremely preferable to doping herself with irradiation and then wonderfully puke-inducing Rad-Away. The most effective option still would've been getting the ghoul to work the knots out of her back, but Cort would be damned if she would go sooking after him; suffering was preferable. _Yes, definitely still very mad. Jerk._ She snatched up a magazine, snorted when she saw it was a Pugilism Illustrated, then dug a syringe out of the locker by the door and jammed it straight through the back of her shirt.

When the pain suddenly flooded back into her no more than five minutes after injecting the drug between her shoulders, Cort finally figured out something very simple that would have saved her an overwhelming amount of grief if she had only been in a position to realize it sooner.

Hissing as her muscles clenched, she jerked up off the couch and started pacing, the pain taking a back seat as her mind immediately started dissecting the problem. The drug had just worn off abruptly, like a tap being shut off, instead of a gradual fade. "What the fuck? No, no no no, that-that just flushed out of me like..."

Cort frowned and directed all of her thoughts inward, combing backwards through her other memories of being under the influence of something, a cold trickle starting to work its way up her spine to join the stabbing ache around it. The Chlorazapine had only worked in a severely concentrated dose, and not well, seeming to be ineffective even though she had nearly overdosed on it. The Med-X hadn't in what should have been, either. Alcohol hadn't when she had tried, which was insane, considering she had drunk a pint of vodka after having over a quart of the moonshine Belle had been passing off as scotch, and she hadn't thrown up that second obscene amount. By all rights, that should have been enough to poison her, _twice _over, not just make her sick in the morn-

"It flushed out of me just like Snowflake." She dropped to the floor with a thump, the pieces finally clicking together for her; a dozen little comments from a dozen different people, being able to keep her cognitive ducks in a row while she should have been a slobbering idiot, the ability to get up the following day and keep going with seemingly no real detrimental effects, aside from a thumping head and a pissy attitude. All these things crashed down around her at once and made clear just what it was that her body was doing.

_Oh sweet weeping Mary. It's not the drugs. It's me. _ She ran a hand over her Pip-Boy. "You smart, sturdy little thing. You were telling me what was going on the whole time, weren't you. I was just too Goddamned stunned to notice."

She ran a hand through her hair, her mind scrambling again. _I have to make sure, I have to test this, what, with what, I don't know for sure, I'll keep trying if I don't, and do something even worse. I can't do that to Charon. What can I do, what have I done that I could-_

Cort jerked to her feet as the solution struck her. Alcohol poisoning. That would do. It was simple, something she had done before, something that her body could forcibly expel if she got in too deep, something the only other person around that she trusted would recognize immediately and react to if she started to drown. _Yes!_ _That's _perfect_. I can go drink it for fun, I can still do that. Gives me a cover story, and not technically untrue if I actually enjoy myself at it._ She paused long enough to scribble a note for Charon, crushed her reservations, then grabbed up her guns and left with Dogmeat at her heels.

* * *

**"Hi**, sugar!"

"Hi, Nova. I like the new sign." Wandering over to her usual seat after waving to the little clusters of Atomites nursing their regular bottles of Nuka, Cort grinned broadly and got an equally expansive one back from the redhead behind the bar. At some point between yesterday and this afternoon, Moriarty's name on the saloon's rooftop sign had been obscured by Gob's in a bright, cheery yellow.

"Do ya? So do I, but you wouldn't believe how wretched that paint stank. Moira and Walter made up just enough of it for him to do that, and am I ever glad there wasn't any extra left to hang around."

"Aw, that was nice of them. Where is Gob, anyway?"

"Right here." Cort looked up as the ghoul carefully came down the stairs, everything except his legs obscured by the stack of boxes he was carrying. Nova darted out and halfway up as the top one started to wobble, plucking it off just in time.

"Can I get a scotch, whenever you're done trying to kill yourself?"

"I don't know, can you carry boxes and help keep me from doing it?"

Obliging, Cort helped them with the rest of what the bartender needed to move and then sat down with a brimming tumbler, promptly sucking half of it back. At this point, she started to detect problems with her plan. If she wanted this to work, she needed to drink faster than normal; _much_ faster. Chugging it would be too suspicous, and make Gob concerned, and Gob being himself, he would try to figure out whatever was wrong and help her with it. She roused up over her glass as Nova's words ran parallel to her thoughts.

"You're too nice, Gob." Cort rather thought that he was just nice enough, but held her tongue, not wanting to stifle the pair. She had made a discreet effort to stay away from the saloon as much as possible, not wanting to upset Nova or draw Gob's attention in the wrong direction, which she considered to be anywhere except at each other.

Gob sighed. "I have to be nice. We can't survive on just Billy and the Atomites chugging cola and _Jericho_."

"I can still-"

Gob cut her off, glaring."_No_."

Nova leaned back against the wall, smiling and shaking her head. "You know how much I like you when you say that?"

The hard stare he was giving her softened. "Do you?"

Cort tactfully avoided her eyes as Nova's face became serious, suddenly finding everything from her glove to the old posters on the walls extremely fascinating, but listening so hard her ears were nearly ringing. Any hopes of hearing what response the redead would give to that were dashed as Jericho banged in through the door, beelining for his own stool and bawling out his order. "Regular!"

Cort watched him curiously. The ex-raider had been surprisingly well-behaved since Moriarty had kicked off, and she had been driving herself nuts puzzling over it until Nova had explained that first, Gob's show of spine had impressed him, and second, she had told him if he kept mouthing off at the ghoul he would be barred from the saloon for good. There being nowhere else in town to drink but at the Brass Lantern, an establishment that was not particularly fond of him after some kind of incident involving Jenny Stahl, he had somehow found himself a set of manners. It mainly just meant he kept his mouth shut entirely, which made everyone happy.

_Wish I could be happy right now. How the hell am I going to do this. _Cort knocked the rest of her drink back and held up the glass. "Another please Gob?"

"Sure." He set another glass up, then leaned on the bar. "Soooo...when you going out again? You've been here for ages this time."

Cort gave him an offended look. "Are you trying to get rid of me?"

"No! No, that's not what I mean, ah, it's, crap."

"You like hearing stories." Cort grinned as he shrugged sheepishly. "I don't know. Soon, I guess, I want to go check out the remaining Vaults. There's still 92, 108, 106...87." Cort grimaced. "Save that one for last." _Maybe like never in a million years last._

"Save that one for never. Unless things changed there's Super Mutants all over it."

"What?"

"It got a direct hit from a bomb, and you know those creeps. If there's radiation involved, they're like ants on a snack cake."

Cort intelligently repeated herself. "_What_?"

"What what?"

"Radiation lures them in?"

"Well, yeah. Everybody knows that." Cort held up her left arm and gave him a bland look. "Okay, so _almost _everybody knows that. Anyway, there's more of it around Vault 87 than anywhere. I guess." Gob fidgeted, then picked up a glass and started polishing it.

Cort was too interested to pick up on his discomfort for once. "You've been there?"

He hesitantly replied. "Y-yeah. I grew up in Little Lamplight. If you can call that growing up."

"_What_?"

Gob smiled despite himself. "You think normal people would name me friggin' Gobtholemew? Maybe if my non-existent normal parents _hated _me. Naming me I don't know, Sue or some shit would have been better."

"I don't know how I would react to having to address you as 'Some Shit'."

"Well I've gotten called that enough for it to be a middle name."

"_Gooob_."

Mock disapproval met her genuine pique. "_Cooort_."

"Tell me about it?" Watching his shoulders hunch in slightly, she regretted asking immediately.

"Maybe later." He reached out and nudged her glass towards her. "Ah. Don't forget this, huh?"

"Nosiree I shall not." Cort plucked up the glass and daintily sipped at it, blowing bubbles and trying to get him to relax again. The cheeky response to Gob finally gave her the solution she was looking for in the form of Jericho.

"Christ, no wonder you can't hold your booze, you can't even get it the fuck down."

Cort slid her eyes from Gob to the sullen lump at the other end of the bar, blinked, and then smiled a wide, saucy smile. "Oooh. That a challenge?"

"What?"

"You and me, hard liquor until someone drops. First one to hit the floor pays for both."

Sensing an easy mark, Jericho stood up and swaggered down to the closest empty table. "Oh, you're on, Vault rat, but we're doing beer first. Puke and you lose."

"Agreed."

* * *

**"You're** ready to lay out. Admit it, I can tell." Jericho pointed a shaky finger at her, the cigarette he was holding dribbling ash over the table.

"Really, because I've been drinking twice as fast as you, ya frigger, and I'm still twice as articulate." They had been pounding back shots for close to an hour, after each finishing a dozen beer. Cort narrowed her eyes as Jericho slumped forward and leered, a cloud of smoke wafting out in front of him. She wasn't quite sure, but she thought he was wobbling an awful lot. Part of it might have been her.

"Just make you twice as ready for me when we get back to my place."

She blinked slowly, nonplussed for a long moment before she giggled and licked the rim of her bottle, tapping on the table at the same time. Jericho noticed in time to match her satisfied look. "Mm, I got it. Perfect ending to our little encounter."

"Not yet, you don't, but you're gonna."

"Oh, really?"Cort sat up, cleared her throat, and started to sing.

"Don't do me no favours, you washed up old raider

I've shown no desire to be bedded

This drinking I'm doing is unrelated to screwing

And you see, I'm already wedded."

Jericho squinted at her with bleary skepticism as everyone else turned around to look. "Bullshit. You want it."

Cort arched an eyebrow, tapped quietly again, and rattled off another verse.

"Cravings I have, but you won't be the salve

For them, I have my man Charon.

Between me and you, since I've had quite a few,

You'd bang me without even carin'."

"Oh like he cares...stop the rhyming shit already. Like any of _them _care, they're just after a piece of whole flesh wherever they can get it. You need to get-get someone with _alll_ the good stuff left on. You'll see, once I get goin'."

Cort flicked a stray bottlecap off of his forehead as he lurched forward, then streched a leg up and out to plant her boot against it when he continued to try and clamber over the table, wobbling her foot around in time to his movements and completely derailing his efforts. She made another series of tappings and took another long pull off the bottle.

"I have no desire to light that limp fire

And God only knows where you've been

If I have to pick between you and some dick,

I'll be choosing the one without skin."

"STAWPIT!" Jericho swayed even harder as the Atomites in the room clapped with approval, and Cort started using her foot to keep him from crashing into the pile of cigarette butts and spilled liquor below it as she drained the last inch out of the bottle, her fingers starting to fumble as she tapped one last time.

"While I'm taking the piss, I can not be remiss

In pointing out I am more than able

Three bottles, you're done, it's clear who has won,

I drunk you under this fuckin' table."

She flexed her leg, and the entire saloon watched as Jericho slowly but inoxerably keeled over backwards like a pitch-soaked tree trunk, picking up speed as he went until he thudded hard into the floor. Cort slammed the empty bottle down and whooped as the others around her did before grimly eyeing the remaining liqour lined up in front of her. "Well now. Here we go."


	49. Breathing Space III

_This is the second chapter in two days, so you might want to check and see if you've caught both of them. Thanks for the new reviews! Also, for whatever reason my spellcheck hasn't worked right since FF retooled things, so if I miss any typos, I apologize._

* * *

**Charon** came back into town when the sun had started to dip back towards the horizon, deciding he had given Cort ample opportunity to unbend herself mentally if not physically, then occupied himself as best he could after reading the note she had left. Having cleaned, rebuilt and organized everything in the house at least twice, he concluded that they would have to leave the town on another mission soon, or both of them would end up going completely stir-crazy. Bored and rather lonely without her, he was already more than half there by the time Cort had appointed him to retrieve her.

Walking into the saloon, he stopped, took in the tableau before him and let out a slow, fatalistic sigh. Cort was slumped over a table, all but hidden behind a forest of liquor bottles, Jericho out cold and sprawled under it at her feet. A handful of Atomites, the only other customers left in the building at this late hour, promptly switched from watching her to staring at him with adulation. Charon wasn't quite sure which was worse.

Gob stood up from behind the bar, froze briefly in reflex at the sight of him, then grabbed up several glasses, tossing a comment over it before bending down to put them away. "Was wondering when you'd show."

Charon gave the space where he had been an evil look, then walked over to get Cort up. It was going to take him more than the usual amount of effort. Her other bouts with intoxication hadn't gone much farther than a severely loopy buzz, more inclined to be mouthy but relatively in control, comparatively speaking. Now, for the first time since she had broken into the liquor cabinet with Butch at sixteen, Cort was blind stinking drunk.

"Cort, how much did you drink?" He waited for her to respond, muffling a curse as a quiet, kitten-like snore rose up from underneath the frowsy lump of hair and crossed arms. "_Cort_!"

"Whuh!" She jerked up when he shouted at her, bottles flying off the table to skid across the floor as her arms flailed out, focused in on him after a few slow blinks. "Whuh?"

Charon slowly repeated himself. "How much did you drink, Cort."

She gave him a rather frowzy look and spoke in the slurry, sing-song way only the coherently sloshed could, carefully enunciating each word like it was a miniature verbal country with testy borders. "Uuuhhm, we had eight large bottles, but we went equal splits so that's only like...definitely way less than four for him since he passed out first and I was good and finished it all. I need to pee." She belched quietly and worked her face into a thoughtful expression, something that looked like it hurt. "I think I might have inadvertently goaded Jericho into death." Her head wobbled as she tilted to look under the table, and Charon darted a hand out to keep her from crashing to the floor. She peered with her open eye at the retired raider as she balanced her chair on two legs, her cheek mashed into the ghoul's palm. "Thomeone thould turn him ober before he barths. He could thuthocate. Or ith that drownink?"

Keeping her upright, he twisted at the hips enough to round on Gob, who had popped back up at the sound of flying glassware. "You fucking let her drink this much? She's so plastered she could stick to the wall."

"You think I _let_ her do anything? _You_ try telling her not to do something she's got a bend on for. Be sure to get back to me on how not well that turns out." Gob shook his head. "Charon, I tried telling her she'd had enough after Jericho went over, I did. Nova tried after that. We kept up until she started getting pissed off at us. I don't know about you, but I _don't_ like her angry with me." Both ghouls looked down as Cort's sodden voice drifted up.

"Oh I'll be fine. It'th okay ath long as I don't get a concuthion."

"I'll concuss something. Come on, Cort, it's time to go home."

She slid out of his grip and landed with one shoulder against his thigh. "I have a problem with that plan."

Charon sighed and stared at his hand, then wiped it dry on his shirt. "Which is what."

"I can't feel my legs." She raised her arms. "These are still here. Hold on hold on _hold on_. I can _totally_ figure this out, there's two functioning limbs here'n I'm bipedal."

Not waiting for direction, Charon picked her up in a fireman's carry that placed her head well back. _If she sicks up that shit at least it'll go on just me and the ground instead of all over her fucking chest. If all of it gets it out of her, even better._ Getting a better grip as she bobbled around, he got something other than vomit.

"Oh my _God_, your ass looks freaking _amazing_ upside-down."

He shut his eyes briefly as all the female Atomites promptly started giggling. "Sweet fuck, we're leaving." _This whole damn mess is making me feel way too damn old._

"Nooo, I like it here." Cort blinked owlishly as he started to move, and then brightened signifigantly. Walking was doing fascinating things to the part of his anatomy she had fixated on. "Oh, it's coming with, right, okay this is good. This is more than good it's flexing now and totally hot." She tried grasping onto it as he walked for the door. "Why did I ever have you change out of your leather pants?" The giggling got louder.

Gob called out, sounding amused. "At least she's a happy drunk."

"You can happily go fuck yourself." He slammed the door shut as Gob snorted back a laugh.

After a quick march through half the town that felt like a solid mile, Charon herded her into the bathrooms, hoisting her up again when she finally stumbled out. "We're cleaning you out if I have to ram all five fingers down your throat in order."

"Oooh, _order_. Mmm, I order you not to."

"_Fuck_ sakes." He altered his course, intending to take her down to Church's clinic, grinding to a halt again as she continued.

"Uhm. And not let anyone else. I order you to let me expel the alcohol from myself naturally. By waiting for it to." Cort squeezed her eyes shut as he swore again, louder and at length. "Figuring out how to outsmart you is really hard to do upsidedown."

He didn't reply, just kept up a stream of vitriol and profanity directed at everything under the sky until they made it back to the house, only stopping when he unceremoniously dumped her on the couch. Cort groaned happily and tried to burrow inside it. He promptly hauled her back out again, bent on getting an immediate answer.

Cort hadn't told him that he couldn't have an explanation, and for once he dearly wanted one, wanted some reason for her making such a wreck of herself he needed to drag her home, something that was making him feel impossibly, uncomfortably old. Pausing long enough to fish a bucket out from under the sink, he dropped down next to her. "Cort, _why_ did you do this. You're an absolute mess."

Feeling extremely uncomfortable herself and not a little ashamed now that things were starting to sink in for her, including the disappointed look on his face, she ducked her head. "Because I had to test a hippopot...hypothesis."

"Which was?"

"That I can do more like ghouls than just heal from radiation." Cort rubbed the back of her neck, struggling for coherency as he gave her a blank look. "Charon, did I drink a normal quantity to get myself this fucked? In your opinion, as a former bar tenant. Thing. Guy." She blinked slowly. "Wait, quantity. Titties."

Letting out a long-suffering sigh as she started making high-pitched giggles, he mentally flicked his gaze back to the table at the saloon, comparing it with the thousands of other slovenly examples he had collected and cleaned during his enforced tenure in Ahzrukhal's shithole. He was positive she had had no more than six bottles, but not less than five, a more or less standard amount for the way she was acting. "Not as much as some, but yes, you did."

She throttled her laughter under control and agreed with him. "Ahhaha-uhuh. Normal for people in _Underworld_."

"Yes, normal for people in-" Charon stopped, his eyes widening in sudden comprehension. "Fuck, Cort. You should be dead."

"Eureka. Normal smoothskin girl who kept all that down should be dead as a doornail." She flapped an arm, narrowly missing smacking herself with it. "Best case a brain-damaged idiot. All I feel is really, really nice and fuzzywuzzy. Don't feel sick or like sicking up or _nothing_. I'm being very good."

Charon thought he could argue against that sentiment, but there were more pressing questions. Things didn't quite add up, and he couldn't decide if he wanted them to or not. _If she's doing this like me, what else will happen to her. What if the rest happ-no. It will fucking not. _He gave his head a slight shake, forcing the unwanted speculations away. "You tossed your guts up in Rivet City the last time, and you felt like shit then and before, just like you should. You can't be sure."

"Mhmm the second time, when I had lots. I also accidentally a barfight." Charon slapped a hand over his face at this point, and Cort took it as him demonstrating the common variable, sitting up with wobbly excitement. " Yes, exactly! I got whacked in the head _both _times. I don't do too well when things whack me in the head. I never like getting hurt in my head, things get...slippery. They move around in there." Cort rubbed vaguely at her temple. "I don't think I'll feel pretty in the morning, but it won't be so bad as then."

He didn't reply, only moved his hand back and forth over his forehead, and Cort scrunched her face up, herding her thoughts together with a monumental amount of effort as she kept trying to explain. "It doesn't work as well for me as it does for you. The Med-X and the pills, they uhm. what's a good word for...it's like I got swamped. I don't know how it works, 'zactly, if it has to do with just your immune system or with the renal one or what. But something flushes drugs on out of you, like a little pump that's always going. I think that mine doesn't turn on until there's something flooding in, and it can't handle as much, so when I took that stuff all at once, it was like drowning. I had to try and see with something that was safe, and now I know. It's not fair. Because I can heal all I can do is make myself sick." She hiccuped softly, looking dejected. "The only reason Stim-paks prolly still work is 'cause they're so fast and I've got defective plumbing."

Charon let his hand fall from his face and stared at his palm before looking up at her, his expression going from thoughtful to determined. "So nothing you take will help...that."

"I don't think so. Probably even if this wasn't happening I couldn't, I don't, I don't even know _why_-" Cort broke off and rubbed at her forehead again, hard. "No, I don't think so. Once I find out how I feel tomorrow I'll know for sure." She tried nodding, gave it up as a bad idea almost immediately, and settled for a rather lopsided wiggle.

"Good."

"Good?"

"Yes. You won't have any fucking excuse to make a wreck of yourself now."

Suddenly furious, Cort opened her mouth to lash into him, how _dare_ he, he couldn't know what she was going through with this every single _night_, and then stopped herself, continuing on in a normal tone of voice when she was sure she could produce something close to one. "I'm sorry."

He blinked in surprise. "What?" He hadn't expected her to capitulate that easy.

"I'm sorry. I've been selfish. Again. You definitely haven't been, and I don't know how you put up with me night after night. I'm a complete and total _shit_." She started tearing up, each sentence ending in a high exclaimatory squeak as she tried to hold it in before collapsing into a low, drawling groan. "I'm _really_ sorry! I don't know why I'm crying! I'm sorry I'm doing that, too, I know you don't like it! Oh God, I _suuuhuhcknnhg_."

Charon sighed for what seemed like the umpteenth time as she collapsed into his chest and blubbered down his shirt, burying a hand in her hair to keep her from nosediving into his lap. "You're doing it because you're crocked." Settling himself in, the ghoul waited for her to settle down, knowing it wouldn't take very long in the state she was in. He had experienced every facet humanity could throw up when soused, literally and figuratively speaking, and all things considered, it was much better for everyone concerned that Cort had turned out to be a harmless, somewhat annoying drunk instead of a mean one. As he expected, she was also fairly capricious; headbutting his chest again to wipe her face clean after only a few short brays, she degenerated into sloppy cuddling.

"All I need is you. I should have known that, I'm so stupid."

He replied with no small amount of asperity. "_Yes_, you _should've_." He made a startled noise as the cuddling unexpectedly turned into rather aggressive nibbling, her sharp nails digging into his sides in counterpoint to her teeth.

"God, do I _ever_ I need you." She twisted her hands up in his shirt, then dropped them into his lap and started fumbling with his belt. "Stay still." Charon raised an eyebrow at her as lustful turned to hesitant. "Uhm. Tell me to stop if you don't like this. I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

"What? Cort, I like whatever you do, but right now probably isn't..." he trailed off as her hands made for a surprisingly efficient distraction, considering how fouled up her coordination still was, then got himself back on track. "You should be getting that crap out of yourself..." He did it again as she got out what she had been after, then froze at the look on her face. Any reluctance was gone, and she was grinning up at him with a wild look in her eye as she wriggled lower. At this point, Charon belatedly realized that he was stuck with an uninhibited, completely inebriated Cort whose entire track record while even marginally intoxicated consisted of a massive brawl and attempting to throw herself off the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. The masochistic part of his brain also decided now was a perfect opportunity to break through the cloud of hormones the rest of it was soaking in to cheerfully remind him that she also took a particuarly special delight in biting him. Hard.

_Ah crap. _"Cort, what are you planning to d-_shit_!" Charon snapped his head back so hard it cracked against the frame of the couch. _Her mouth, oh holy _fuck _her mouth-_

He opened his own, sounding half-strangled. "What are you _doing_?"

She sat up and licked her lips. "I told you there were things I hadn't shown you yet." The hesitant look came back into her face as she saw how completely blank his was. "Do you want me to stop? I don't want to push you again, if this is too fast or making you feel bad, or-"

Everything else -his anger at her, his worry- started dropping away. Charon decided to let it. Voice hoarse, he tilted his head forward to watch. "No. Show me more."

* * *

**Some** time later, Charon laid his cheek against her thigh and sighed, a satiated look on his face. After Cort had finished, he had decided to reciprocate, with wonderful results.

Cort smiled. "Told you I'd test your patience."

"You didn't tell me you'd shred it. Told you you'd crack like an egg."

"You didn't tell me you'd break me wide open." She shivered as he shifted to lay his throat against her and made a deep, pleased rumble, lifting it up into a question at the end.

Bed?"

Cort pointed an arm vaguely upwards. "Yessir. Bedbedbedbedbed." The arm collapsed as he sat up and buckled his belt. "Uh. _My_ clothes?"

"Casualty of war." Gathering her up after stripping his own shirt off and swaddling her in it, Charon found himself becoming more convinced that her theory was correct; she was showing no signs of nausea, even with everything else about her shot to boozy hell. Right now, she wasn't the only one feeling lightheaded. _She tastes sweet everywhere._ He nuzzled behind her ear and laid a kiss there. "How do you come up with these things."

Cort giggled at the inadvertent double entendre, reining herself in and ticking off the fingers on one hand as he started up the stairs. "You can't give me credit for _that_, people have been doing it for millennia. But to kinda answer your question, I'm not scared of the human body, know how things work, have a healthy attitude about sex and a really good imagination." She paused for a moment, trying to figure out if she had put the right amount of digits up. "Lots and lots of raunchy romance novels helped, too." She dropped into a conspiratorial whisper. "Between you and me, I think whoever stocked the Vault library was a bit of a perv."

"Will you do it again? Later? Please?"

She grinned at how sweetly hopeful he sounded. "Perhaps." She shook her head slowly. "How did you ever get to be as old as you are and not know about this stuff? I mean, not even a little? You've used it a couple times to rip on folks, I've heard you. I was kinda surprised you never, you know...after we started..."

Charon gave her a distinctly uncomfortable look. "I picked up enough to insult someone, not actually understand it. Whenever someone...you remember. The carrier."

"Yes." Feeling him start to roll his shoulders, Cort let it be. "Tired."

"Well then sleep, jackass."

* * *

**Twisted **up in a rumpled swath of blankets, Charon had his head resting up against the top of Cort's back so he could listen to her heart thump in his ear, her slow, even breathing and soft snores overlaying the steady rhythm. He ran a hand over the smooth expanse of skin laid out before him, tracing down and back up her spine before gently pulling his shirt back down over her. It was marred only by the fading remnants of an old plasma burn and the last bullet wound she had received, emerging in the center of the former like a red island in a rosy sea. She was a map of injury and survival. Turning around, he pressed his lips to the crook of her neck, his favourite spot. It was in between two other very important scars; the one below her right collarbone, and the almost lacy, ladderlike formation that ran from the base of her neck up to her right ear.

Gently tilting her over, he kissed both of these in turn, tugging down the collar of his shirt to find the second, then nuzzled his face into her hair, pulling in the warm, musky scent of her. She would be waking up again soon, and he had chosen to stay up until then to watch her, content for the moment to be still. He had done nothing but watch her since the first time she had woken up, soothing her mind and then carefully cleaning the addiction out of her as she had taught him to. She had been right in her reasoning; aside from that, she had felt perfectly fine. Charon breathed in again, closing his eyes. He knew she did; he had touched every part of her after he had carried her back to bed again.

For now, he was just appreciating the narrow cavern of heated air between them, so hot under the worn wool it felt like a solid buffer. He shifted slightly to nibble below her ear without closing the gap, tasting salty and sweet. _She tastes like that everywhere_. He kept doing it until Cort finally stretched and spoke, sounding drowsy.

"Mmm. What time is it."

"Mid-evening. About eight."

"Oh, wow." She let out a soft laugh. "Well, _neat_. It's nice when you can spend the entire day in bed, isn't it? I haven't done it for so long. The last time I did before we came back here was when I first got to Underworld, but I don't think that quite counts, since Barrows wouldn't let me the hell out of it when I wanted."

Charon didn't reply immediately, thinking about the last time he had been laid out. It had been after a particularly nasty raider attack in the same bed Cort had spent her early convalescence in, and as always, he had hated the brief period of weakness; the only satisfaction he had gotten from that particular ordeal was the fact that Barrows had prevented Ahzrukhal from getting anywhere near him for two solid days. He had been more or less fine after one of them, not back to top condition but at least able to stand after Barrows had finished cutting the shrapnel out of him, and Charon thought the doctor had kept him for that extra day out of sheer perverse contrariness, pleased as punch to be nettling the sleazy bar owner. It had been hellish, torn between the compulsive, wrenching need to get up onto his feet and back to serving his employer and wanting to do anything but, including getting shot full of more holes. Unless he _had_ been shot full of holes, or burnt, stabbed, bludgeoned or something equally incapacitating, laying about in bed was something that was never permitted. "What makes you think I'll let you out now?"

"Well, we can't actually stay here _all _day."

He allowed himself to skirt around the barest edge of wheedling. "Why not? You still have my shirt. I'll get cold."

"Oh you will not, you're toasty enough to make it to another one. I am in an excellent position to judge. Besides, I'm really hungry. I haven't eaten since this morning."

"Really hungry is very good."

Cort yipped as he instantly jumped out of the bed at her prompt for food, then briefly stuck out her tongue as he rolled his shoulders and jerked his neck, making him grin as he produced a series of pops and snaps from various joints. She let her eyes wander over his bare back, wide shoulders tapering down to narrow hips, his exposed muscle tissue contracting and expanding in small waves as he fiddled with four shirts that were all exactly the same. Cort smiled softly. _He's beautiful. _

Watching as he stood at the desk for a few moments, continually fussing through the tidy stack of clothing he had folded there for himself, Cort got the distinct impression that he was putting himself on display for her, and waiting for a response to it. _Well, who'dve thought of that. Positive behavioural changes, indeed._ "You're fantastic, you know that?" She got an immediate disgruntled snort and a roll of chalky eyes in her direction as he finally yanked a shirt on and tucked it into his pants, but not before his shoulders moved back for a split second, the chest underneath them puffing out subtly in the only display of pride he ever seemed to allow himself to make.

Turning back, he leaned against the desk and crossed his arms. "When are we going out again."

"I don't know. Things are different out there now." She fidgeted and avoided making eye contact. "I can't really put it off for much longer, can I."

"No." He gave her a searching look, something she no longer tried to avoid or deter. "You're...worried, aren't you."

She let out a bitter laugh. "That's _one_ word for it. Another would be chickenshit."

He gave her a level look. "You don't have to be. I told you; I'll slaughter them all."

"I know." Even with this reassurance, she still hesitated, although she knew procrastinating was pointless. Meeting the Enclave again was inevitable; any newcomers to the town chattered about them constantly, Three Dog was still going on about it on the radio, and the caravans that normally hit Megaton like clockwork were late, out of order, or not even showing due to the distruptions they were causing in people's movements in every corner of the Wasteland, outside of DC. Various raider packs were in such an uproar Crow and Doc Hoff had skipped several stops altogether on their last trip, according to Crazy Wolfgang. She hadn't seen the itinerant tribal for months, now, and trying to use that as an excuse to stay put probably wouldn't impress Charon in the slightest. She sighed. _No, I really can't put it off any longer. It wouldn't be the right thing to do. Besides, eventually they might find me here and, and-_

Cort practically bolted from the bed. "Okay! Pitter patter, let's get at 'er. We've got music to make." She smiled nervously. _Look on the bright side, there's always one, isn't there?_ "It'll be good, meeting other Vault dwellers, really. I'm looking forward to it."


	50. Running to the Shoal

_Thanks much for the new reviews and alerts!_

* * *

**Stockholm** yawned and slapped the gate trigger again, wincing slightly as the battered jet engine spooled up and started grinding the wing fragments that made it to a close. He had woken up twenty minutes earlier to what had been a series of steadily harder pokes in the ribs from Cort, who had somehow clambered up into his nest. She wouldn't tell him how she had managed it, and he was wondering if he was awake enough yet for it to drive him crazy. Thinking no, not quite, he lazily scratched his ribs and watched the three mismatched silhouettes disappear into a darker black than they were made of, muttering to himself.

"Didn't want to yell and wake everyone up, woke me the heck up so everyone else can be up right now. Why tell her the gates will do that, she was being thoughtful, I should be thought-" Another long, jaw-cracking yawn. "ful."

Why her and the ghoul wanted to set out in the middle of the night he figured was none of his business, but then he really couldn't blame them for wanting to avoid the press of people in the morning; both of them had obviously been getting antsy about it, what with their increased excursions outside the walls. They had been back close to three weeks this time, and Stockholm himself had been just about ready to slap half the town silly after a barely one cooped up with them. It had gone great at first, he had been able to talk to everyone, but somewhere around the second day they had all started carrying on conversations at a shout whenever he appeared, and wouldn't shut up for _anything_. All that inane chatter had driven him half batty; crawling back up into his dusty, humid little nest had almost been a blessing. It was quiet, he had a new mattress, it was quiet, and he didn't have to deal with anything but shooting things and being comfortable and drifting off to slee-

He jerked as a stone hit him in the back of the head. "OW! Jesus jumping fireants!" He whipped around, looking back into the inner corridor. "_Nathan_? What the _hell _are you-"

The old man standing below him dropped the rest of the little rocks he had clenched in one hand all over the tidy packed dirt. "Good, I got you up with one. Open the gates, boy, I want to go for a stroll."

"I _was _up, you dumb bugger!" Stockholm looked around for the rock to throw it back, then decided it wouldn't win him any points with Manya and settled for patting at the egg rising on his scalp. "What, _now_? Nathan, it's the middle of the damn-"

"Yes, _now_. I've got-got to get my exercise in, weather's better, and that, that _monstrosity _isn't going to be running idiot rings around the town now, messing things up. I'm itching to get back on track, with, with _it_."

Stockholm debated as Nathan fidgeted nervously. He'd get heat off of Simms and Manya for letting the oldster out this late, a lot of it, but it was bound to be far less than if the old crank started throwing a royal fit over being kept inside, even if the idiot got himself eaten by someone. Nathan going off really _would_ wake half the town, and besides. Stockholm had _liked_ watching Charon wander around, the big ghoul taking a new track every time, scouting, searching and cursing. It had been entertaining as hell. All Nathan ever did was circle twice and head off into the gully for a few minutes before heading back in. _Let him go out and get his nuts nibbled off, why not_. "Alright, fine. Your funeral if you go outside of Deputy Weld's sensors, I can't see to shoot father'n them right now."

"I'll be fine, just open _up_!"

Stockholm shrugged and did, Nathan shuffling out as fast as possible once the gates were wide enough to admit him. Triggering them closed again before they could get any farther, he turned around again to wait. The only reason Simms wouldn't be up and already putting his boots on at this point was if he had dropped stone dead, and-

Stockholm yelped and flicked the safety off his rifle as another rock beaned him in the noggin. That was it, he wasn't going to shoot Nathan but he sure as hell was going to make the cranky old bastard dance, tango his tits off, samba till he shat. Bent on retaliatory mayhem, he spun around and finally stood up. Instead of the oldster though, there was a ragged-looking Wastelander peering up from outside the wall, just far enough outside of Deputy Weld's greeting area to have kept Stockholm from noticing. "You _want _to get your ass shot? Or I suppose you want to get in instead of waiting for a nice, reasonable daylight hour."

"No. Sorry. I want to stay out here. Old guy told me to try that. Said it was the quietest way to get your attention." He glanced around, then back up. "Is Mister Burke in town?"

"What? No. Not for months." Stockholm made a shooing motion, if he wasn't coming in he wanted him gone, he couldn't let Mickey in but he could at least chase off competition, then belatedly recalled something Simms had told him. "And if you run into him out there, tell him his house is going up for grabs in a couple months if he doesn't resume tenancy or send word. He paid up, but if he's dead, well. Can't keep a house when you're dead."

The man nodded and trotted off. Stockholm flicked the safety on his rifle back on, collapsed on his bed and yanked a blanket over himself after there was no immediate sign of Simms, then sat up a second later. Jamming his cooking pot on his head, he thumped it to his ears and laid back down, getting as comfortable as possible under the stench of scorched molerat to wait. He didn't expect Lucas to chuck rocks, but he'd be _damned_ if he got nailed a third time.

* * *

**"I'm** going crazy." Cort frowned thoughtfully, looking over her shoulder at the dim, silver Potomac. "Or am I already there?"

"No." Charon eyed her carefully as she continued walking up the riverbank and back onto the plain around it. Since the night the rain started, aside from a few stilted, uncomfortable and unfinished questions, he hadn't brought the subject up again. Until now, neither had she. "If you were there, I don't think you would be worrying about it."

"True. I feel better."

He looked at her hopefully. "Do you?"

"Yes. Ignoring instead of admitting only makes things worse. I'm going crazy and I know it. One less thing."

He held back a wince. That hadn't been quite the clarification he had been hoping for. It didn't keep any of it from being entirely correct, however.

"Ask me about it, if you want to. Maybe it'll help." Cort tilted her face up and added on an excuse for him to avoid the topic. "Or the stars. You could ask about those, instead."

A small part of him wanted to take the opening, but he forced it into silence. Not asking had brought him to this point, and information, no matter how uncomfortable, was still valuable. It meant he could plan an attack, a defense, something. "What...what's it like." Cort rattled off an answer much faster than he was prepared for.

"It's like I'm a bunch of different people, different people in my head but that's silly because I'm all one me, I'm whole, but the parts won't stop _fighting _because I'm keeping them apart. There's one who loves and one who hates and one doesn't care at _all _but they're all the same, they're all me and I don't know which one I'm supposed to be but I'm all of them and I'm trying to win." She drew in a ragged breath, continuing on in a tiny, quiet voice when she was finished. "How am I supposed to win against me?"

This time, Charon did take the excuse. He pointed to a small point of light that had shown up ahead. He shifted around and unslung the sniper rifle, gratfied for once to see a rabble of jury-rigged armour and flourescent hair at the other end of the scope, the rangy figures gyrating around another slumped in front of a flaming barrel. "Raiders." He raised his eyebrows briefly. "Fuck, haven't seen that in a while."

Cort pulled the spare scope from the rifle he had salvaged out of a pocket and held it up to see what had piqued his interest, frowning after a moment. "What the heck are they _doing_?"

"Initiation. If the one on the ground lives, they'll let him in."

"Oh. Crow told me about this." Her frown deepened as one of the figures started kicking. "We should save him."

"He doesn't need saving, Cort. He asked for it."

"Why?"

"Because they're fucking lunatics? If..." He hesitated briefly, supressing the desire to substitute something unflattering for the merchant's proper name. "_Crow_ told you about _this _part, you damn well know he's already murdered someone somewhere to get to that point. They would have butchered him by now if he hadn't."

"Yeah." Cort worked her free hand into Dogmeat's ruff for a moment, then tucked the scope away and started walking in a direction that would give the group a wide berth, poking at her Pip-Boy. "C'mon, I want to see if we can get to the Scrapyard by midday. I think getting to Vault 92 might take as long as two, since we don't know what's going on out there." She spared another glance towards the point of light. "I enjoy killing them now. Is that alright?"

"So do I."

"That wasn't an answer."

"No."

"That's why I shouldn't go over there, anyway. Not right now." Flicking her hand in a dismissive gesture, Cort made one of her hairpin conversational turns. "Have you met any before? Vault dwellers. Are they like me?"

Charon held back another wince. He had, not counting the corpses he had run into, on four separate occasions. All of them had been complete fruitcakes, to one degree or another. "Yes."

"Which Vault were they from?"

"I don't know; none of them ever gave up a number. One didn't have his suit anymore, and the three who did were so badly worn you couldn't tell what was printed on them any longer. Only the first still had a Pip-Boy."

"Did the others still have their arms?"

"Yes."

Cort screwed her face up, sounding doubtful. "Then how did you know those three were even from a Vault?"

_They were dysfunctional raving lunatics who couldn't stop screaming about it_. "They talked about it well enough and at such length that I doubt they were lying." She fell silent, thinking, and Charon joined her. He hadn't said anything, hadn't really thought of it after hearing her talk about them for months, but his encounter with the people from 101 had surprised him. While most of them had been naive, incompetent or downright deluded, none seemed to be even close to insane. He hadn't had that much opportunity to observe them _all_, but still. None he had spent a protracted length of time with had given him the same feeling of something being unhinged, the sense that something wasn't quite laying true inside of them that Cort had when he first met her. That she definitely gave him now. It was troubling. He looked over as she bent to dig in the dirt.

"I don't know why I keep saying 'other'. I'm not one of them."

"You were raised there."

Cort snorted. "Yeah, well throwing chickens in a pond doesn't turn them into ducks. Dad should have known that."

She fell silent again, and still Charon did nothing to fill it, catching his mind up in reexamining every interaction and observation he had had or made of James, searching for any indication that her instability had been an inherited trait. The man had had a ruthless streak a mile wide, something he had carefully screened behind a mantle of gentle civility until circumstances got sufficiently dirty enough to require him to drop it, and the ghoul could grudgingly admit to himself that he would've liked to have seen Cort's father in his fighting prime, would've liked having another insight into her. They were alike in so many ways.

Trailing after Cort as she picked her way through the handful of pebbles she had scooped up for anything she thought might be pretty enough to keep, Charon mulled over their similarities. Along with the obvious genetic traits and personality quirks, there were also formative events. Both had lost someone important and been powerless to prevent it, and both had dealt with living in the Wasteland and the Vault. But she had been so young, and grown up the other way round. He thought briefly of a tiny little face in a picture, and then an older one with long hair, the same guileless eyes in both, then of the haunted ones that were looking at him now.

"It's so hard to see things in the dark." She held up a knobbled pebble and smiled slightly. "This one _feels _like it might turn out to be nice. Something good inside."

Charon took it when she held it out and wordlessly tucked it away like he always did with the little baubles she had started gathering up to decorate the house, wedging them into cracks and corners where she thought they would shine, saying she wanted to fill up the holes around her; she didn't like them being there. He had griped loudly about her making him rattle like a bag of shell casings, she had her own fucking pockets to stuff with crap, then put extra pouches on his belt for the things when she wasn't around to notice. He hadn't noticed anything decorating her room in the Vault, aside from those pictures.

Perhaps the Vault _was_ to blame for how batshit the people in them were, but only after they were exposed to the outside world. It was entirely possible that being raised in the confines of one damaged a person irreparably once they were removed from it, like a crutch being yanked away. Something that could do that to a growing mind, shape it in such a way that it could crumble without the support it was conditioned to need, wasn't exactly a far-fetched concept with everything he had personally gone through, although that was far from a comforting thought. Once he was able to observe people actually residing in another Vault, he could confirm the theory. Until then, he supposed it was just as well Cort had bound herself to him, and took comfort in the security of both their contracts. She had taken away one crutch and replaced it with another. Eventually, he or it(he wasn't quite sure on the correct distinction, or if there even _was _one) would suffice. _ I can do for her as she does for me. I always do._

* * *

**They** reached the Scrapyard in the early afternoon, making good time the entire way. They hadn't run into anything aside from a few scattered animals since spotting the raiders on the outskirts of Bethesda, the dearth of life paridoxically making them jumpier. In Charon's experience, a lack of smaller things generally meant something bigger was getting ready to 'napalm your calm', as a fellow merc had colourfully put it to him long ago, and his unease was telegraphing to Cort through the dog. It was almost a relief to get into the confines of the wrecked cars, even with the heat baking off of them so hard the tangy smell of hot metal felt like a punch to his exposed sinuses.

"Here. Just exactly here." Cort pointed a few feet away, past a half-rotted body they had just stepped over. "This is where I met Dogmeat." She pointed back. "And _that's_ the fucking jerkface who ran into me and broke my nose." Staring at the dessicated corpse, she nervously ran her fingers over her clipped ear a few times, then kissed the tips and darted over to pat them against the cratered skull. Giving her surroundings a scattered look as she stood up, she headed deeper into the Scrapyard. "I liked this place, the first time I was here. Reminded me of home."

Cort slowly worked her way into a clearing at the center, then started shucking out of her pack, stretching when it thumped to the ground. "I really must be nuts, wanting to go back into a damn pit in the ground. I need to get up higher, out of _this_, just for a minute, and look around." She approached one of the stacks of crushed, jagged lumps, looking up at it doubtfully, and he called over as she started to reach out.

"No, you'll cut yourself to shit. Try this instead." Charon laced his fingers together and held them out in a wide cup for her. Brightening, Cort came over and pushed herself up from his hands to his shoulders, standing up slowly on top of them after he straightened. He reached up to brace her ankles as she wobbled for balance. "Good?"

"Good? This is _fantastic_. I'm huge! Look at you, making me fly!" Spreading her arms out, she grinned and glanced down. "We can make Minefield before midnight, I bet. Don't ever say that I don't take you anywhere decent."

* * *

**Cort **ducked and Charon cursed as another slug whanged into the concrete next to their heads, followed by a reedy screech.

"_You'll never take Arkansas alive_!"

"I don't want to take you anywhere!" Cort scrubbed cement chips off of her neck, widened her eyes and screwed her mouth up into a tight pinch as she noted her fingertips were bloody, then flat-out screamed back. "WE DIDN'T EVEN BORDER ON ARKANSAS HERE! WE DIDN'T EVEN BORDER ON THE FREAKING TEXAS COMMONWEALTH, I AM UNABLE TO TAKE YOU TO ANYTHING! IT IS A GEOGRAPHICAL IMPOSSIBILITY!" She huffed and let out another indignant scream.

They had reached Minefield when she had wanted to, and had spent close to an hour disarming and stockpiling mines, her treating it as a game and the ghoul making dark, well stocked plans in his head(he had noted far too many tracks around Megaton that did nothing but approach to an observable distance and then retreat, and while he wasn't positive he could swing the idea of planting some strategic offences around the town to Cort, he would damn well be ready to do so if he did). Following them by the light of her Pip-Boy, the sniper at the center of the town had waited until Cort was close enough to notice him on her screen, and by then they were too far in to make an unscathed escape in the dark.

Judging the wall they were behind to be sturdy enough to withstand the onslaught, Charon settled himself down to wait for daybreak when their assailant would be partially blinded by it and the munitions around them would be easier to avoid. "I don't think he's listening."

"I don't think I _care_." Both of them looked over as shots started pinging off of a car to their left. "Uuuh, does that one still have its react-" She blinked as the underside let out a quiet whump and started smoking.

"Ah fuck." Charon picked her up by the waist and ran to the lee of the next house just as the car exploded, then tossed her several rather unceremonious feet into a pile of rotting brickwork to give himself enough time to disarm the mine now beeping away at his feet. "Cort. Stop taking me anywhere decent."

"Charon." She sneezed violently, sending up a puff of powdery red dust. "No." Another sneeze. "I'm sorry. It's been a long day and I just wanted to sleep here. Well not _here_, somewhere that doesn't make me look like a lump of tuberculoidal mucus. I thought nobody would bother us here, Moira said everyone thinks it's haunted by a vengeful ghost, GEE I WONDER WHY." Cort twisted and pressed her hand against her nose, snorted one side clear, then the other before turning back. "Can we get a clear shot at him?"

He gently tucked the new mine into his pack with the others. "A clear shot at him means a clear shot at us, he's a fucking whackjob but he's _good_. We could split up, one of us draws fire, the other takes him out."

"I don't know if I like that...wait, does that truck behind you-" A ping and a whump from behind him.

"Ah _fuck_."

"RUN!"

* * *

**Dogmeat** tore around the corner of a house and whirled, kicking up a scree of pebbles as his claws dug in to propel him forward again. He stopped with his nose twitching at the edge of shelter, darting out the instant another part of the landscape had finished blowing itself to hell to take stock.

His first was stuck in the crumbling remains of a house's foundation. The big world was behind another pile of brickwork a good distance from her, so insufficiently small for his bulk that he had flattened himself to the ground. Neither were close to any other shelter, and both looked completely disgusted with their current state of affairs, a sentiment Dogmeat found himself entirely in line with. Every time one of the two twitched an inch, another shot tore out, driving them back. He almost missed it when a bullet smacked into the big world's leg; the only sign of it was a quiet grunt, a slight shuffling to the right, and the sudden reek of copper. That made sense enough, it was something the dog could get behind, hiding it when you were hurt. Showing you had somewhere soft to tear into was never a prudent thing, especially when the bastard doing the tearing was still about. Unfortunately, his first would go silly as soon as she scented it. She always did. He dug his claws into the earth and thought.

He didn't so much plan his course of action as discover it, the decisions he made coming to him so fully formed after his simple deliberations it was if they appeared from nowhere instead of making an expected arrival, clicking into the problem-hole he had mentally sniffed out the shape of. Right now the hole was shaped from impatience and walled with frustration, a void made appropriately enough of having had quite enough of nothing. They had spent close to an hour of spinning and running and spinning and running and he hadn't caught _anything_ but scorching heat up his tail. And now one of his worlds, his centers of being had a soft spot to tear. Definitely _enough_.

Breaking out, he made his way to the center of the town, darting from shelter to shelter, detouring only when he scented the mines sprinkled over it like antagonistic thorns, filling his head with chalk and burnt paper and bad eggs.

Getting up to the sniper was simple. Finishing him off quietly was simple and satisfying. Dropping the warm rifle into his first's lap, getting the startled, tight hug and sharing the blood on his face with her, feeling her hands smearing it to his soft ears? Absolutely sublime. It was _best_.

* * *

_And wooo, I got my computer fixed finally! So you all get a treat._

* * *

**She** was sat there in the corner of the barn, all battered leather and wicked knives, a long collection of limbs and death, slumped and forgotten in the gloom like a deadly scarecrow. The muttering noise she was making wasn't doing anything to dispel the macabre impression for him, but he felt too old for shadow-jumping crap like that, and filed it away. Raul walked up to her, and the unintelligible susurrus of her voice rose as her head did, her slack face tightening into a grim mask. "Well, go on and take a look. Did I do them all right?"

She was balancing a faded primer on one knee, a pile of labels stripped from old liquor bottles on the other, painstakingly childish scribbles covering both front and back. Today they were working up to the letter 'K'.

"You're still mixing up the little d and b, and your j is backwards."

The eye he could see ticced alarmingly at this, but her voice came out smooth and collected. "Show me again, if you please."

Raul hunkered down and wrapped his hand around hers, drawing the pencil over a fresh label. She had begun by mirroring every letter he wrote out for her, and it had taken him a full two nights of effort and frustration before he had realized that Charlie's left-handedness was fouling her perception up. "Look, boss, see? The 'd" gives you something to grab, the 'b' jumps away, and you have to be careful with the 'j' because it can hook you."

She snorted. "'J' is a jerk."


	51. The Rocks May Melt, the Seas May Burn

_You ever have times where it seems that everyone needs your attention whenever you're awake to give it? I've been trying to write this for two frickin' weeks. Thanks much for the new reviews and etcetera, peeps!_

* * *

**"We **can avoid them easily."

Cort peeked out from their position at the top of a ridge, squinting in the morning light. They were a few hours out of Minefield, more than halfway to Vault 92, and had finally run into what she had been dreading. Looking down into the valley, she could see a small Enclave outpost with three people; two troopers on guard and an officer milling about a table, a pile of crates off to one side. She shook her head.

"No. This is my home, _my _place and they're messing it up, messing with my people. I told Daddy I'd look after them and I _meant_ it." She gave him a terrified, eager look, baring her teeth in something that was a cross between a grin and a grimace. "Let's do it, fuck 'em up. Let's kill them _all_."

"Good. But we have to do it my way." He explained further as she gave him a questioning look. "They're an army, Cort. A good one."

"So?" She double-checked her Pip-Boy. "There's only three down there, we've fought more than that before."

"With solid cover in a constricted area." _With you going ballistic and nearly getting yourself killed. This time will be different_. "This is different." He looked around, taking stock of their surroundings again in minute detail. As terrain went, this wasn't a bad one. Rippling, rocky ground at their back with plenty of trees, it would be easy enough to find cover or retreat if things went south. It was a far cry from the mess the Jefferson had turned out to be.

He thought the only reason they had done as well as they had was because he had been able to keep Cort to the rear of it, and then because the resistance they had met in the Taft Tunnels had been mercifully small, in tight, covering areas where the soldiers were unable to advance. Now, they were out in the open, and the Enclave had had weeks to become used to fighting with(more likely hunting down, really) the local population. They would know how to react to raiders, mercs, and from what he had gathered, had been fighting the Brotherhood for decades. They hadn't really met him. _Time for some fucking introductions._

Charon had been trained to fight them all and more, solutions and tactics for every possible opponent and situation hammered into his memory. He looked at Cort, hesitating slightly. She had no idea of the real extent of his abilities, no one still alive did, the big merc using only what was necessary for him to get the job done. He believed anything else was an unseemly display, and had always had the added risk of leading employers to have higher expectations of him. It made it harder to get the drop on the bastards whenever they gave up his contract. Her, though. He could live with her expecting more. Could show off just a bit. "There is a particular way for a smaller force to fight an opponent like this. You have to counter appropriately."

"I have to fight like they do? Like the Brotherhood would?" That nervous teeth-baring flashed out again. "I saw the initiates enough, I guess."

He shook his head briskly. "No. The Brotherhood initiates have their training manuals anally implanted. They're good soldiers, which means they're fucking idiots until they go through a few shitstorms. Then most of them are still idiots. You're already past that point. You can do this, you just need to watch me first. You'll need to fight like..." He cast about, looking for the correct comparison, settling into his own grin when his eyes fell on Dogmeat beside her. "Like the mutt fights. Stalk, bite and retreat. We will have to split up for this to work, on occasion. We won't always necessarily be able to kill them, but we can still fuck up their shit. We have to be sly. Can you do that?"

**"**Yes." Cort turned away, watching the figures below them. "Charon...if I had listened to you better back in the Jefferson, would we...would I have..."

"No. There's no way we could have gotten there before your father locked the door. It was all over from the moment he did. You can't change it. You _can_ kill those fucks down there, and this is how." He explained what he wanted to do, what he wanted her and Dogmeat to do, and she started giving him a genuine smile that only got wider the longer he talked. It was the best way to teach her, to get her to do something and enjoy doing it. Charon started her on the bloody path to revenge with a game.

* * *

**"Sir**, when are we going to see some action out here?"

Lieutenant Sanders glanced up from his terminal and fixed a steady and appropriately gimlet eye on one of the troopers under his command. He was relatively sure it was the same one who had addressed him. "We'll get action when base decides we need action, soldier." Shaking his head, he returned to his readouts. Boring radiation levels, boring radio transmissions, boring, boring, _boring_. What had possessed Captain Ockram to send him out here with just three grunts, _green_ grunts, he had no idea.

_Right, no idea. I don't have a single one. _He snorted. Most likely it had to do with that pretty and oh-so-_wonderfully_ loose piece of tail from the science department the Captain had caught him chatting up; so what if he'd had his eye on her too? It was also probably why he was at a checkpoint in the middle of nowhere, instead of doing something worthwhile, like exterminating the annoying native populace. No, instead of quashing the unwashed mutated yokels, he was out here like a tollbooth for them, pumping their dim brains for information under the cover of trading worthless trinkets for those ridiculous bottlecaps they used as currency.

Either way, he was out here, and Ockram was probably dipping his wick already. That wasn't right, really, some grunt with a no-account background outranking him, a _Sanders_, descended from the same lines as-

"Hey, it's a dog!"

Sanders drew in a long breath, let it out, and kept typing. "So? Shoot it."

"It looks like a scavenger's dog."

"I'm not hearing anything that should alter my previous instructions." Sighing heavily again to broadcast his irritation, Sanders looked up. One of the large cattle dog mongrels that seemed to be so popular with the natives was coming towards them, mouth open in a happy grin so broad its tongue was curled up to the roof in a wide swath of pink, tail wagging high as it hesitantly approached. It stopped several feet away, the tail still moving in slow sweeps. Someone clearly owned it, the fact made evident by the faded red bandanna tied rather jauntily around its neck. Both troopers let their rifles droop, and the dog made a muffled yipping noise in response, almost prancing forward. Sanders turned back to his terminal. "I said _shoot it_, soldier." One of the pair -Smith? Smythe? Sanders couldn't remember and supposed it didn't matter, he could write both of them up for insubordination in bulk form, it would save time and paper- turned back to address him.

"Come on sir, he's the first moving thing we've seen for days that hasn't been a tumbleweed. If his owner's around, maybe we can get intel off of them."

He looked up from his work yet again and eyed the thing. Something about it wasn't sitting quite right with him, and if they refused a third time, he would shoot it himself. "Or maybe the fleabag can lead you into an ambush."

Seemingly intent on coming to them instead, the dog suddenly darted forward in a gamboling, goofy lollop, his head down as he made curious little snorts in place of barks, finally stopping with his chin in the dirt and his front legs splayed out, tail still going like a metronome.

"See sir, he just wants to pl-"

The dog coughed as the trooper knelt down, two objects tumbling out of its mouth as its tongue relaxed, the thin one travelling so fast it was almost flying, and the animal was off like a shot in the time it took Sanders to realize both were part of a frag grenade. It took him another second to register that Smith or Smythe or _whoever_ was now missing one of his helmet lenses, soupy gore spewing out of the hole, and then everything went to hell in a handbasket. Sanders flipped his table over as the grenade went off with a sharp concussive '_bang_!', peppering it and the other trooper who couldn't move to cover fast enough with shrapnel. The unfortunate man was riddled a moment later from two different shooters, both aiming for the weak points in his armour. Sanders clawed for his radio and started shouting into it, safe behind his table and deciding discretion was the better part of valour. "_Return to base! Repeat, return to base!_" That done, he frantically punched in a new frequency. There were Vertibirds patrolling to the West, they could get here in _minutes_ and all he had to do was stay-

He goggled as his hand was suddenly torn open, and spent his last few seconds alive wondering just where the _hell_ his fingers had gotten off to, you couldn't undo a bra with just _one_ set, what the hell was he going to do with Miss Loose-and-Goosey _now_, before the dog sent his throat out the same way. Sanders thought it had still been smiling.

* * *

**"Cort**, wait."

"Awesome!" Bubbling over with anticipation, Cort nearly fell over her own feet running down the hill ahead of Charon, Dogmeat yipping beside her as she skidded to a halt in the little camp they had blasted to hell. "You were awesome, we were awesome!" Rummaging her way through the bodies as the ghoul joined them at a more sedate pace, bits and pieces flying everywhere, she turned over the terminal long enough to frown at the shattered screen then picked up a plasma rifle lying next to it for a closer look. "Oooh, we'll have to make a cache of everything to collect on the way back, I want to take it _all _apart. We need to find a way to get at least one of the suits to the Citadel, and take stuff to Moira, maybe she can get something off of the terminal if I bring her the insides, I never learned that part, maybe she could show me, and, and look how new and shiny this is!"

Charon shucked out of his pack and set it down. He had expected to drive her confidence up, relieve some of the strain she was under, but this behaviour was bordering on nutty ecstasy. Watching her, he considered the possibility that she had been hiding a lot more fear of the Enclave than she had let on. He would have to figure out a way to make her more cautious without curtailing it. "Stop waving it around and I will. You'll put your fucking eye-" Dogmeat snarled, and he suddenly felt like liquid fire had been poured up the back of his armour.

Cort screamed as he bellowed, both of them turning to attack the Enclave soldier that had emerged from behind an outcropping off to their left. She scrabbled with the unfamiliar weapon in her hands when it didn't fire, slammed the loose microfusion cell back into it and started shooting, her aim going pathetically wide until she corrected, the last gobbet of superheated gas catching the trooper square in the neck when he dodged away from a spray of buckshot. She winced as the entire figure flared bright green, then collapsed in on itself with a sizzling wet plop. Eyes going wide, she hesitantly walked over and poked at the steaming pile with the end of the rifle, then scrambled back from it, her gaze sliding over to latch onto the doubled-over ghoul.

"There isn't anything left of him. There should be something left for someone to find when you die. _He_ was just gone, I couldn't get to him in there, I don't know where he went. They shot _you_ with this and-" Bursting into tears, Cort started smashing the rifle to bits against the ground, picking up a rock to finish the job when it broke apart into pieces too small for her to swing and sobbing harder all the while. Dogmeat circled around her, trying to get closer and jumping back whenever another piece of scrap zinged out towards him.

Charon straightened up slightly and hitched closer. "Cort, stop it."

She shrieked. "I WANT TO KILL ALL OF THEM!"

"Cort, _please_. My back hurts."

She juddered in a breath, and the rock thudded into the dirt. "Oh God. Hang on."

Cort dumped her own pack, calmly hauled out her supplies and set to work. The combat armour had taken the brunt of it, but enough had gotten around the edges to leave a hideous weeping burn on either side of his spine, massive blisters rising up from both skin and muscle tissue, the last of which burst as she peeled the charred shirt from his back, clear serum running down in a slippery gush over her fingers. She pulled out a bottle of glowing water, carefully dribbled it over everything, then gave him another one to drink. Patting his back dry to finish, she frowned, puzzled. "I _think _it's alright, but the damaged skin's just gone and turned a bit grey. I've never seen it do that before."

"It's fine. Get what you want done and your stuff together." Charon stood up abruptly, pulling on a fresh shirt and falling immediately to the business of repairing his melted armour. Somewhat mystified at the sudden brusqueness, Cort hesitated.

"I'm sorry."

"I know. Don't worry about it. Fucking bastard got the drop on the mutt, too. Next time, we wait and circle around before approaching."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes. Right now I just want to get you inside somewhere." He looked up briefly before returning to what he was doing. "Building over there."

"Alright."

* * *

**Charon** settled Cort into the garage they had found outside of Greener Pastures Disposal, a cesspit of radiation that under other circumstances would have been comforting to him, made sure she was comfortably and fully occupied with fussing over Dogmeat, then disappeared into the spartan little washroom at the far side of the building. Balancing the little lantern they carried on the back of the sink, he looked around, spotted a skeleton tucked beside the toilet, both of its arms still wrapped over its head in a duck and cover position, and yanked a scrap of clothing loose. Straightening, he spat on the filthy mirror a few times and rubbed it clean with the rag, checked again to confirm that Cort was completely absorbed in playing with the mutt, then quietly shut the door and stripped his top half bare.

Sucking in a breath, he held it and turned, eyes wide and mouth pressed together in a thin line as he dropped his right arm and raised the left to look back over his shoulder, his body in a graceful, twisted arc that seemed to be just one more mockery of the way he now appeared. He knew what he would find, had felt the hated rubbing and flapping of loose skin as they had walked here, but not to what extent. Turning back when he was finished with his self-inspection, he leaned on the edge of the basin, grabbing it in a brutal clench as he pressed his forehead against the tarnished mirror and snarled.

It was huge, easily the largest piece he had sloughed off in more than thirty years, and the thought of losing it permanently hurt bitterly. It was also in an impossible spot, too far out of his reach to cut free, but just close enough to tear off, which would certainly take a wide strip of living tissue along with it, which would happen to an unknown degree _anyway _if he left it alone. He would have to do one or the other. Charon started thumping the flat of his left hand against the sink, the one he would have to use, rocking on his feet as he tried to work himself up enough to tear it off, just wanting to get it over with and the gutless feeling out of himself, trying not to think about what he would have to tell Cort when she noticed it was missing. She immediately would, the next time they had sex or he was wounded or whenever he just had to change his _fucking_ shirt, his girl loving to look at every part of him whenever she had the chance, looking at him like he was some wonderful gift she had been waiting her whole damned life to unwrap. He was sure as fuck unwrapping now, and how the _hell_ could he expect to succeed in keeping her together when he was falling apart? _ All of it will fucking come off eventually anyway, why the hell am I trying to keep any of it. Just grab it and yank, just fucking grab it and RIP-_

Alarmed by the rhythmic thumping, knowing it meant something had just reached a watershed moment for him, Cort barged through the door before he had managed to make more than half a dozen strikes against the rusted metal. "Charon? What is it, what's wr-" She blinked in surprise and skidded to a halt as he spun around to yell at her, grabbing up his shirt in a futile attempt to cover himself.

"_Don't look at me_!" Typically, Cort did the exact opposite and continued to observe him, the startled look slowly shifting into the queer, thoughtful one that meant she was in the process of figuring something or someone out. Considering he was obviously trying to hide his back while standing in front of what was now an extremely inconvenient mirror, it didn't take her very long. The thoughtful look shifted again into something thankfully neutral instead of pitying, something there at least that he could be grateful for during this personal nightmare. Charon didn't know if he would have been able to stand seeing pity on her face for him, not for this. _Not for anything_.

Moving closer, Cort grabbed his arm and after a moment's resistance turned him around, bringing her Pip-Boy up for more light to get a better look at what had upset him enough to derail. A piece of skin the size of her spread hand had peeled up from under one of his shoulder blades where the worst of the plasma burn had been, looking like a tattered strip of flaky, fleshy wallpaper. It was obviously too far down for him to tend to himself, and she spent a short moment wondering why he hadn't asked her to help, and a longer one thinking about it when the answer came to her, sitting like a hard weight in her chest. Keeping her voice as neutral as her face, she inspected the area and then got down to the point, not wanting to prolong what was an obviously unbearable situation for him and trying not to make a big deal out of it. "Can it heal back up, or does it need to come off."

Feeling her warm hands tracing over him, soft and insistent, Charon choked out the words. "No, it's dead. It needs to come off, or it'll take more with it later. I can't...Cort, I can't _reach_-"

She answered before he could ask, keeping him from having to. "Oh, don't worry, I can." Taking her combat knife out of her boot, Cort held it by the back of the blade like an oversized scalpel and carefully shaved the dead flap of skin away, trimming it precisely down to where it was still attached to his back. Throwing it back into the dark recesses of the room behind her to hide it as fast as she removed it, she gently pressed her lips against the newly exposed muscle when she was done. "There. All finished, it's gone. Do I need to do anything else, or are you fine?"

Charon bowed his head and answered both questions at once, feeling hot with shame and self-loathing. "No."

"Well, then. Come on, turn around and hold still. I'll dress you back up this time." Cort kept her face serene as he silently obeyed, taking the shirt out of his unresisting hands and putting it back on him when he was facing her, up over his arms and head and tugging it down gently into place. Tucking it in, she then hauled his armour up, standing on tip-toe to push it over his head, which was still directed firmly towards the floor. She was finishing with his belt pouches before he spoke again, so quiet she could barely hear him, even as close as she was, a too-small voice in a too-big body.

"I'm sorry."

Cort cinched the last strap into place, wishing it could pull her heart back together at the same time. "Don't be. I can do anything for you. I will. I don't mind."

"Cort, _I_ mind."

"I know. But it doesn't matter. Remember everything you had to do for me at the Citadel?" Taking up his hands, she kissed the palm of each, then placed them on her waist, tilting her head under his to look up at him. "You take care of me, I take care of you. It doesn't matter what it is, it's what we do. Isn't it."

He replied hesitantly. Yes."

Grabbing his face to make him look at her, she enunciated each word carefully. "Charon, I love what is there, not what is not."

"I keep being more not. I can't give you..." He trailed off, flexing his hands open.

"I've already told you. I only need exactly what you are capable of giving me." She laced the fingers of her left through the ones of his right and tugged. "Come on, we've still got a ways to go, and it's still light out. Let's go see what mess I can get into. I'll need you to get me out of it." Cort cocked her head. "Oooh. I wonder if I could tame a Yao Guai."

Charon snarked back, not sounding as if his heart was in it, only replying because she expected him to. "I wonder if you have any damned brains in your head."

They headed out of Greener Pastures, and walked for an hour before Cort spoke up again.

"I could ride it. A pet Yao Guai. Like an awesome ursine _pony_." She bit her lip as he gave her an absolutely listless reply.

"Sure."

Deciding she needed something a little more drastic to lift him out of his funk and not wanting to start a fight over it, Cort looked around. They were in a flat, open plain with nothing visible for at least a mile, it was almost noon, and scorching hot. Both of them had grenades and their sidearms, and Dogmeat would let them know well in advance if anything loopy enough besides them to brave the insane heat was coming. Making up her mind, she signalled the dog to go patrol and then dumped her pack and helmet, Charon reluctantly mimicking her a second later. _Perfect._ "Guess what?"

He sighed, wondering what she could possibly want to stop for in the middle of the desert and hoping that whatever it was, it had absolutely nothing to do with what had gone on back in the garage. "Fuck, if you say 'chickenbutt' again...what." He blinked in surprise as she slapped his armoured chest.

"Well that just begs for me to do it, smartypants. Oh, and by the way, tag, you're it." Cort danced away and grinned, rocking from foot to foot as he stared at her confusedly. "Well come _on_, you're not going to catch me _that _way!" Not waiting to see if he clued in, she spun on her heels, wiggled her rear and took off running, laughing like a loon as the sudden heavy thud of feet behind let her know she had succeeded in drawing him into the game. Cort kept him going for as long as possible, making sharp turns and wild, rolling dives that kept her just ahead of his longer legs and reach, both of them skidding and sliding and sprinting across the hardpan. Sparing a lungful of air to taunt him, she finally lost the advantage. "Having fun yet, slowpo-OOk!"

Charon caught her with one arm and swung her around, her feet flying out in an arc, before bringing the other up under her knees while he panted back a reply. "You, tell me, jackass." Bunching up and bending low, he shot up and tossed her into the air, grinning like a fool as she squealed, Cort landing back in his arms with an armoured clunk and a request he was happy to oblige.

"Higher!" He sent her flying again and again until somehow suddenly she had managed to wrap her legs around him in some sort of half-assed straddle before he could send her airborne again, and then they were rolling half-naked in the dirt, clothing flying everywhere until they had removed enough to take each other. It was quick, frantic and messy, with dust in his eyes and rocks digging into her back, feeling hot and awkward and absolutely wonderful as they wrestled against each other, both of them yelling at the top of their lungs when they finished.

Panting and still letting out spurts of giggles, Cort stroked the top of Charon's head when he rested it on her chest. "Better now?"

Charon took note of the warm sun on his back, pressed in tighter against the warm body underneath his. "Much. Tell me what I am, Cort. Please."

"You're perfect. You're mine." She looked at him playfully. "Want to play 'name the muscle' next?"

He grinned. "I know which one you can start with."

Cort grinned back as he grasped one of her hands, slowly sliding it down between them. "Naughty. Uhm, Charon?"

"What?"

"...Chickenbutt."

* * *

**Cort **fell asleep after that. In the time it took for Charon to retrieve their belongings from the various scattered positions they had ended up in, she had sprawled out over Dogmeat to wait and nodded off instead. Quietly snorting, he piled everything up and then contented himself with simply sitting beside the dozing pair, propping one arm on the other side of Cort's head to shade her face from the harsh sun. _Maybe if I wake her up on purpose. Just let her nap for an hour or two, that won't stop that shit, but if she naps a lot.._.

He spent a few minutes musing over the plan until he was satisfied it was a viable option, then spent the rest of the time he had allotted to it absently stroking her hair and contemplating completely inconsequential, unimportant things. It was a moment of pure, carefree happiness, a perfect lightness of being. It was the last he would get for a very long time.


	52. Any Way the Wind Blows, it's Hitting Me

_Thanks for all the new reviews and watches, folks! For anyone who hasn't played it yet, Old World Blues was the BEST EXPANSION EVER. I mean ever for every game I've played. One of the characters is the same guy who voices Dr. Venture! It was totally awesome. X)_

* * *

"**It's **open. Feel it?" Cort looked over long enough to see Charon nod, then pointed her attention back to the slatted door in front of her, bits of her hair teasing around her face in the soft, foetid breeze wafting out of its cracks. It stank of rust and rot, layered on top of something wetly unpleasant. "It's been open for years, with a reek like that."

Flicking on her light, she held up her arm and opened the door. Living in what was effectively a cave for nearly all of her life, Cort was no stranger to pressure changes, the ebb and flow of air ticking like clockwork as the temperature from the rock around it alternately transferred and leached heat from her home. You could even sometimes tell what time of day it was just by where the drafts were headed, creating turbulent little pockets that made the soft hairs on the back of your neck stand up as they pushed against the ventilation system's steady currents.

One of their favourite games as children had been to open bulkhead doors separating large sections of the Vault from one another and close their eyes in the resulting air movement as both sides equalized, letting their minds soar on the brief puff that slipped around them. That had been fun, allowed them all to imagine for just a moment what a real wind blowing over them would feel like. It hadn't even been comparable, in hindsight. Even in her confusion and pain, leaving 101 for the first time had felt like a rich furnace was being cracked wide open, the hot morning air rushing in around her.

Vault 92 felt like a corpse trying to force her into a soul kiss.

Giving Charon another look and a grim little smile, she dropped her arm back down long enough to raise her repeater, then started walking down the entrance tunnel. "They might've just figured out it was okay to come outside like ours did, except they left instead." The ghoul said nothing back, but she hadn't expected him to. Agreeing with her would have been senseless coddling, and he wouldn't insult her by stooping to it.

Walking into the open Vault, she stopped, turned around with narrowed eyes and pulled her pistol, shooting out the klaxon speakers mounted over the door._ There we go. Just in case._ That done, she started inspecting the entryway carefully. Spotting something square and white between a pair of ruined terminals, she brightened slightly. "Look, a holotape. 'Professor Malleus Audio Log V92-01'. Maybe it'll tell us what happened." She plucked it up and pushed it home into her Pip-Boy.

* * *

**She** found more of Professor Malleus' recordings as they made their way through the Vault, forced into a methodical search by the frag mines someone had left like deadly little breadcrumbs all over the ruined interior, hidden behind doors and under the rare skeletons they found. Cort played each in turn as she found it, then handed it to Charon to tuck away into her pack. She hadn't looked directly at him since finding the second.

The residents had been subjected to some kind of subliminal message implantation, brainwashing using white noise. In a tape next to the Overseer's terminal, she learned Malleus' experiments had gone terribly wrong in one of the subjects, the man snapping to the point that it had taken twenty-three shots to bring him down. It only took turning on the terminal to find out that things were far, far worse. The Overseer, on orders of Vault-Tec, had been piggybacking an even more terrible one inside of it. Where Malleus had been horrified at the results, Rubin was gleeful.

She darted a glance towards the large shadow behind her and away again, clenching her hands into fists and then forcing them out flat. There was no doubt he was reading over her shoulder, and for once she found herself grateful for his nonexpressive nature. She wasn't sure how to handle her own response to the revelation of someone attempting to make an army of people like him, let alone his.

Cort shut down her emotions off as she read the last entries pertaining to Vault-Tec's super-soldier program, ruthlessly compartmentalizing them as her father had taught her to do in response to an emergency and reminding herself that everything she was learning about had happened nearly two centuries prior. She managed to accept the revelation that the Vault's inhabitants had been unwilling test subjects as clinical information, something to file away into her own mental doctor's chart so she could make a reasoned, impartial judgement. It worked perfectly until she reached Zoe Hammerstein's diary, and a patient joined her paperwork. Zoe had gone from a happy, bright musician to a deranged, schizophrenic wreck, barely able to string the letters together in her final entry.

'_klkhi puu HeLP meeLpEdit: aw;'jf OrDe R p[fal al Hlep HeLp dme vMe, LosS mInd CANdofw stopthem gEt OUT m[pofmy HED_'

Reading the girl's last pathetic cry for help, Cort whirled around to finally look Charon in the face, eyes wide and one hand pressed hard over her mouth before she made a loud kecking noise and crumpled forward to retch on the floor between them.

Reaching over to place a hand on her back as she heaved, Charon found himself oddly comforted. He didn't care a whit for what had happened to these people, short of the distress it was causing Cort; in his estimation, people did horrible things to absolutely everything they possibly could. This was no great surprise or travesty to him, just a simple lifelong fact he had learned early and decided to live with. While they hadn't been strong enough to become what he was(nothing like him, no, they had fallen, they had been _weak_), they were still, in their own sad, pathetic way, kin to him. Looking at the dessicated skeleton that was presumably Zoe under the desk, he spent a split-second feeling melancholic before he realized what he was doing, and curled his lip up in a defensive sneer. _Dead, like all the rest, and not worth being upset over. They're gone. Fuck 'em._

He pulled a purified water from her pack as Cort finally straightened, then held it out. She wiped her mouth, took it and drank it up like a child, holding the bottle with both hands so tightly her knuckles whitened. She wiped her mouth again when she was done and looked at him.

"Are you all right?"

He looked back at her, then around, unsettled but not for the reasons he knew Cort was inferring. This Vault had driven its residents insane. 112 had been another nightmare. But 101 still seemed no more troubled than a subterranean Megaton that had ended up with a bad streak of leadership and luck. There were no answers for him about her here, only more questions and confusion and uncertainty. "No. I am most definitely not all right."

"Then let's get that stupid Goddamned violin and get the hell out of here."

"No fucking argument from me."

* * *

**Cort** had felt marginally better after discovering on further holotapes that Malleus had had no idea what the Overseer was doing, and had tried to stop him, but any relief was overshadowed by the reprehensible knowledge that the entire Vault had been used as a Petri dish. It didn't matter what the base motivation had been; the people had been nothing more than lab rats to either man.

It was approaching dusk, Cort having purposefully eschewed sleep to get as close to Vault 108 as possible, and she felt like six kinds of hell. Halfway to dropping dead, it was just as well that she hadn't thought to try and rest earlier. With the way her mind was racing, she knew sleep wouldn't come until she had nothing left to run on; trying to get Charon to sleep without her taking her own rest would have been even more pointless. _I could've ordered him, but then I'd have him pissed as shit on top of everything else. Whatever everything else even is_. She knew there was possibly something not right going on with the Vaults. To what extent, she decided she couldn't speculate on, both for a lack of hard evidence and a strong, gut-wrenching need to avoid doing so. There were far too many places her mind could go.

The Soil Stradavarius slung over her shoulder, pack laden down with pounds of fresh meat from the Mirelurks that had gotten in through a breach in the lower levels of the Vault(and hadn't that just been icing, as if the place hadn't been screwed _enough_ when most of its residents had been turned into brainless killing machines), she had jammed any further thoughts about it down as far as she could. When Charon pointed out they had been walking for almost a full day, that she hadn't slept since napping the preceding afternoon and he hadn't since Minefield, she considered the notion that they weren't very far down at all.

She checked her Pip-Boy briefly and went back to staring at the horizon, doggedly trudging towards the southeast. Sleeping here was possible, but not something she wanted to do. They had been running into Radscorpions with alarming frequency, and while they could live with sleeping in shifts, the new prospect of getting the whole night was more appealing. "There's a safe place to rest up ahead. One of the caravan stops. Temple of the Union."

"_How _safe."

"Safe as houses." She shook her head wearily as he frowned. "It's a little group of runaway slaves. Crow said it was safer than just about anywhere, as long as you agree to their rules, which is simple. You just promise not to tell any slavers about them." Topping a rise, she checked her Pip-Boy again and pointed. "There. It's got to be that sortof intact building there, next to the wrecked one. C'mon."

They carefully circled around the building in a tightening spiral that led them to the entrance, which was blocked off by a chainlink gate. Cort rang the bell wired into the wall next to it, after reading the sign that helpfully instructed her to do just that. Moments later, a woman wearing a non-descript merc outfit and sporting a half-shaved head crabbily popped out from the blasted window above her.

"Do you know where you are?"

Not wanting to give away prior knowledge, Cort played dumb. "I'm in the middle of nowhere. Duh."

"How did you find us. What do you want."

"I spotted you a mile away." Cort stripped the cover off her Pip-Boy and waggled her arm in the air. "And I want to sleep on your floor."

"You have no idea who we are. This place could be a death trap."

"Oh for- lady, you and the..." She glanced at her screen briefly. "_Five_ other inhabitants in there are showing up on this as something that won't try to shoot me right away _and_ you're in a fortified building, so that makes this place next door to Shangri-_friggin'_-La. All I want is a place to sleep for the night where I won't wake up with a Radscorpion gnawing on my ass." Watching the woman narrow her eyes, she sweetened the pot. "Look, I got fresh meat to trade. Mirelurk. Got supplies too, and I'm a doctor."

"And what's the ghoul, your little nurse?" She kept going before Cort could fire off a retort. "If I had my way, I'd drive you and lunchmeat there off, but Hannibal says we have to let folks like you in. Stay there, I'm coming down to open the gate."

"Stay, right." Cort rubbed her face, muttering. "Where the _hell_ would we go? Jesus, it's like trying to get into a bitchy, miniaturized Emerald City." She turned down to Dogmeat. "Cover the left side just in case, Toto."

Charon allowed his mouth to twitch as the dog obediently shifted his position. "Am I the Tin Man or the Scarecrow?"

She grinned. "I love you, you know?"

He gave her a pleased look, then turned to face the gate as it opened.

The guard jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "Right, get in. Hannibal is upstairs somewhere. I'm locking the door behind you, so don't try anything funny. I'm watching you." They stepped through, and she snapped out once more. "Big and ugly stays down here until Hannibal clears you."

Charon planted his feet. "I don't fucking think so."

"You ain't supposed to be looking at me, to say nothing of talking to me." She thrust her jaw out, sneering at him before rounding to Cort. "And you, beat it! Hannibal is waiting for you."

Cort took in a measured breath and contemplated how to phrase a diplomatic threat._ If I had known it was going to be this much hassle, I would've plonked us in a ditch chock full of those pinchy bastards for the night. Would've been more pleasant._ Reaching a decision and hoping Reilly wouldn't mind, she patted the insignia on her chest. "No. He comes with me, or we have a problem. If we have a problem now, you'll shortly have another one with the rest of Reilly's Rangers, and if you've heard of us, you know we're not a group of stupid Talon _fucks_. So. We'll be going upstairs now." She waited long enough to watch the woman bristle, then headed for the stairs, jogging up them with a lightness she didn't feel.

Reaching the top, Cort and Charon both jerked to a halt and stared, dumbstruck. Sat square in the middle of the room, big as billy-be-damned on a plinth of concrete, was the Lincoln Memorial's severed marble head. Composing herself, Cort firmly crossed her arms to keep from flinging herself at the decapitated presidential noggin. Hugging it probably wouldn't be a very mature response, his nose would end up in her _boobs_, for heaven's sake and committing mammary assault on what was most likely a venerated object of worship probably wasn't the best way to make a first impression(and if it _was_, she didn't want to know about it). She was also more or less positive she would fall on her own face before she made it to Lincoln's. It had been too long a day at this point to display exuberance with any degree of success; polite small talk would have to cut it. She turned to the dark-skinned, bearded man in battered recon armour who had been approaching them before they stopped so abruptly. "Oh. Well gee! We were _wondering_ where that got off to. All the way out here, huh?"

Hannibal Hamlin was expecting some response, ranging from indifference to incredulity, but not something quite like that. It threw him off his normally effusive stride, and the hearty greeting he had been ready to deliver died in his throat. He smoothed his hands over his chest, trying to collect himself. "I'm sorry, what?"

"The giant head sitting over there. It was missing."

"You've been to the Memorial of the great Abraham Lincoln?"

"...Yeees, that's how we _knew_ it was missing." She cleared her throat and tried to herd the conversation in a direction that got her the most amount of sleep with the least amount of fuss. "I'm Cort, and this is Charon. What's your name?"

"Oh. Forgive me. You've already met Simone Cameron. I'm Hannibal Hamlin, and may I welcome you to the Temple of the Union!" He waited as everyone ranged around him nodded politely and Cort nodded politely back, then continued. "Now, I'm not going to ask who you are. for the moment I don't care. As we are all escaped slaves, I need your solemn promise not to betray us to Paradise Falls or the Slavers. until I get that, you cannot leave here. so do I have your word?"

Cort glanced at Charon for his agreement and then mildly stated it for the both of them back to Hannibal, feeling rather bemused. If they were this transparent and trusting with strangers, it was a wonder they had managed to stay unmolested past a bare week. "We solemnly promise not to betray you to anyone."

He clapped his hands together. "Excellent! Welcome, sister! Our home is your home. Your past is your own affair, so long as you serve our common good. As a symbol of our trust, here is a key to the gate."

Cort delicately took the proffered key along with the whiff of zealotry, idly wondering if Hamlin had ever hung out with Confessor Cromwell during their formative years. "That's very nice of you, thank you."

"Now, if you wouldn't mind, could you inform me upon the state of the Memorial? We heard it was infested with Super Mutants. We've needed to send someone to check that out before moving to the great site of our Saviour, but no one here with the ability can be spared."

"You want to move-no, no, of course you do." She flicked her hand dismissively. "There were Super Mutants, but the Slavers killed those. Well the ones in the Memorial, there's still a lot in the Mall but they won't bug you if they don't see-"

He cut her off, alarmed, the other people in the room echoing his reaction. "Slavers have occupied the Memorial?"

"Had occupied; we killed them all. It's probably still empty." _Well, except for the body parts and a probable shit-ton of radroaches chowing down on them, but why split hairs._

"Then you have done us a great favour!" Cort jumped as he grabbed her right hand and pumped it between both of his. "May the spirit of the great Lincoln protect you. Now, if i could ask you another boon. We still need an escort through the more dangerous parts of D.C."

Carefully extricating herself, she apologetically shook her head. "I know where you're going, and I'm very sorry, but I can't right now. I don't know when I would be able to, either." Free of his grasp, she shuffled out of her repeater and pack, hoping she had reached the point where it wasn't impolite to politely tell him to leave her the hell alone. "I'm sure something can be sorted later, but right now I-" She stepped back as he suddenly stepped forward, his eyes fixed on her left arm.

"That rifle. That _glorious_ rifle, can what is written upon it be true, or have my eyes deceived me?"

Cort hesitantly replied, glancing down at her repeater. _You just had to keep the scrollwork nice and shiny, didn't you. Nitwit. _"They don't. It belonged to Lincoln."

"It is a shining beauty. I must have it." He reached out, and Cort backed up even further.

"I'm sorry, again, but the 'beauty' is mine. You're welcome to the other stuff of and pertaining to Lincoln I found, but the repeater stays right where it is."

If possible, his eyes brightened even further. "Other things? What, what else have you found? Do you have them?"

She explained the artefacts she had found, the diary, the little knick-knacks and posters, and where she had tucked them all away. "They should still be there, because of the ferals nobody else really goes into the other parts of the Museum except the people in Underworld, and they've left them alone for this long."

Hannibal rubbed his hands together, looking almost ecstatic. "Good, good! You have even found the things that Caleb would need to restore the great man himself. We _must_ make a future arrangement to retrieve them. Are you sure you won't part with the gun? I can pay you handsomely."

"No." Cort tightened the arm around her repeater in something that wasn't quite a hug. "It sings for me. It clears the noise out of my head."

Charon finally rasped out again at this, drawing the stares from her to him. "Cort."

She blinked a few times and gave her head a shake before focusing back in on Hannibal. "Right, sorry, don't mind me. I'm really very tired."

He nodded to her, then looked askance at Charon. "Of course. We can find a spare mattress for you, and the ghoul can stay down with the Brahmin."

Cort's eye briefly twitched. "My companion and I will _both_ stay down with the Brahmin, thanks." She nudged against Charon and headed for the stairs, not daring to look into Hannibal's face again. She thought she would tear it to shreds if she did. "Come on, we'll sleep in the trash under the stairs."

Tromping down, she gave Simone a wooden stare as the other woman immediately headed up, then shuffled under the partial cover the wide concrete steps provided, heading as far back into the gloomy corner as she could. Leaving would be easier at this point, even with the giant eat-your-face bugs, but she wold be damned if she would allow herself to be driven out. Settling for a passive-aggressive dig, as much as she hated to do it, at least gave her a small spike of bitter satisfaction. So would leaving before anyone would be awake to try and trade with her.

She snorted. _My damn Mirelurk. All of them can just go suck an egg and eat dirt, then suffer from a thousand untreated, infected hangnails._ It was a petty thought and in all honesty she knew they would eventually need the caps, but it felt like being contrary was the only strength she had left to draw on.

Watching Cort wallow herself a comfortable nest into the crumbling mess, Charon grunted approvingly when Dogmeat placed himself directly in front of her. Digging both hands into the edge of the pile, he scattered a handful of plaster bits around in a wide arc so they would crunch under pressure before dropping down next to the pair. They could see the entrance, there was solid cover on three sides, and he could hear anyone coming from above through the vibration in the stairs. As shelters went, there were sufficient positives to make it a good one, even if it was asshole-infested. Charon settled into his own makeshift divot and patiently waited for Cort to respond to the only negative.

"I'm sorry. I thought they would be nicer to you."

He rolled his eyes. "Why, because they've been fed their own flavour of shit? _Nobody_ is nicer to us, Cort, not unless they know better. Most of the time, not even then. Slaves sure as hell wouldn't get a chance to, and_ I_ certainly couldn't give a shit either way." He sighed when she looked confused at this. "You heard what that fuck Walker said; truculent and stupid. Useless and rabid animals get put down, not sold. To them, I'm just an abnormally _big_ animal." Cort simply stared at him for a long minute and then shut her eyes, seemingly too tired to argue for once. He couldn't decide to be grateful for that or not.


	53. 99 Problems and a Clone is One

_Thanks for the new reviews, folks! Certain liberties have been taken for Vault 108, namely because the timeline doesn't match up very well(108 opened about 40 years after being sealed, and considering how much of a wreck the place is, I decided that the Garys' uprising took place around the same time). _

* * *

**Glory,** glory-"

"Gary!"

"Hallelujah-"

"Gary? Gary!"

"Glory-"

"GARY!"

"-GLORY, HALLELUJAH!" Flat on her back and struggling against the man trying to stab through her helmet, Cort's voice warbled in and out of pitch as she kept belting out the only thing she could think of to block off the cacophony around her.

Charon slammed one of his assailants against the wall and snapped out from across the room. "Do you have to keep fucking _singing that_?"

"GLORY-" She puffed, scrambling one hand back across the floor for any weapon she could find, both her repeater and pistol lost in the gloom. "I don't KNOW, did you HAVE to not tell me you'd previously encountered a race of _insane Vault dweller CLONES_?" She grasped a discarded pencil and slammed it into Gary 33's eyesocket with a triumphant screech, vitreous fluid joining the unidentifiable smears over her visor. "HALLELUJAH!"

"It wasn't a race, there was only one! How the FUCK was I supposed to know there was MORE THAN ONE?"

"GARY?"

"STOP YELLING AT ME!"

Thrown off by his last target, Dogmeat sailed through the air behind her, latching onto another Gary's face to stop himself from socking into the far wall and making the man whirl around like a psychotic screeching ballet dancer before his fangs slipped and he rocketed off in a new direction.

"_GARYGARYGARYGAREEEEEEEE_-"

Charon fired to shut him up, cocked his shotgun and roared back before shooting again. "YOU STARTED IT!"

Cort had enough time to pick herself off the floor before she was tackled once more, caught up and grappling with another mad clone. _What the fuck is wrong with me? Today started so good!_

* * *

**They** had left the Temple of the Union precisely when she had wanted to; well before anyone was up to notice. She delayed only long enough to sneak up and hug Lincoln's head, and then they were out and travelling again. Avoiding any sign of anything that could possibly cause a delay, mid-morning found them coming up to Canterbury Commons.

Cort eyed the settlement wearily until she noticed who was standing at the far end of it. "I don't want to go in, I can't deal with...it's _Crow_." She lifted a hand, and the caravanner lifted one back. She turned to Charon as Crow remained stationary, waiting to see what she would do. "What do you think?"

Charon thought quite a lot of things, the majority of them unflattering, but decided to tell her what she wanted to hear most. It wasn't as if he had anything to worry about, and the chances of it providing a much-needed positive distraction -for _her_, at any rate- were high. "We should go in."

"Really?"

"Yes. Go hug the annoying little shit."

Cort smiled at him, then started trotting towards the caravan. Charon laid in his own course for the periphery where Crow's guard Marion stood, exchanging a curt nod with the other merc on the way.

Crow grinned and spread his arms as she approached, returning the hug and thump on the back Cort gave him. "Ah, the Lone Wanderer crosses my path yet again."

"Smartass. You've been listening to the radio." She stepped back a few paces, grateful he had made no move to kiss her. "Good to see you, Crow."

Crow shot a careful glance towards the big ghoul who had taken up a similar position to his guard, then returned his attention to Cort, putting on a wistful expression. "I had been hoping for a more exuberant greeting."

"Sorry to disappoint, but I'm taken."

"Yes, I heard. Flak is one of my better trading partners, and he was fairly effusive on relating the events of your last visit to Rivet City." He smiled as Cort suddenly looked guarded, knowing what she was thinking. Finding out she had been banned from the city had been the distasteful thing; discovering she had paired off was merely disappointing. Crow was smart enough to know that evil lived in every man, and out of his tribe's influence long enough to know that even the evil-minded ghouls weren't always necessarily malicious spirits, no matter what the people back home believed. On that account, he supposed his rite of passage had been a bit more eye-opening than they had intended. He also supposed his willingness to deal peaceably with everyone outside of the tribe, including ghouls, was an adolescent holdover from wanting to stick it to his elders.

It had been fun, the little back and forth game they had started, and he could have seen it going somewhere mutually and pleasurably beneficial, if circumstances had been favourable. They certainly weren't now, for an unending multitude of reasons, but then the winds of fortune had a habit of changing when you least expected them to. Anyone in his trade certainly knew that, and Cort was a case in point. He watched her cross her arms, one foot coming up to rub at the back of her leg.

"I have a whole lot to tell you. You know I found Dad, and...stuff." Cort fumbled at her back, yanking a bulky case forward. "Look, I finally got Agatha's violin! Do...do you have time to listen?"

Crow dropped himself comfortably onto the ground, smiling again when she followed, the violin clutched in her lap. "For you? I have all the time in the world."

As she had requested, he listened intently as she unburdened herself, and then focused on the most recent events, deciding she had most likely heard enough condolences and platitudes from the residents of what passed for civilization. "I'll have to determine the best place for a replacement stop if Hannibal decides to move. The Republic of Dave might be amenable." He hid a flash of amusement as Cort made a face. What information Crow had been able to relay about Dave and his unique philosophies had not impressed her. She pulled her tongue back in a second later to ask a question, nodding towards the town.

"Will _they_ bother us if we go in?"

"Well, Machete has a winning disposition she blesses everyone coming into town with, but no, you won't be unduly vexed by anyone here. Prejudice is bad for business." He watched her expression harden up at this. "I can go in with you, if you'd prefer."

"I'd prefer people wear their own faces, no matter what they are." She turned back, brightening. "We don't need anything, I only came over to visit with you."

Finding that eminently agreeable, Crow sat for a moment trying to decide what topic would entrance her into spending the most time with him, before Derek Pacion blundered into their little group on his way back into town.

"Hey, Crow. Who are you?"

Cort squinted up at him, deciding the non-specific question had been directed at her. "I'm Cort. And you are...?"

"Oh." He scrubbed at his striped shirt, looking first blank and then elated. "Oh! You're the Lone Wanderer! Cool shit! I heard about you on the radio!"

Cort sighed heavily, not happy about another reminder of Three-Dog's appointed title for her so soon after the last. _There's no Goddamned point to it anymore, the Talons and the Enclave have to know I'm not 'lone', everyone _else _sure as shit does. Every frigging time I hear someone else say that, I feel like I'm being jinxed. _"Yes, I'm on the radio. But I'm _not_ alone. I travel with my friends." She nodded towards Charon, not quite making it to Dogmeat before Derek wrinkled his nose up.

"That's a _ghoul_."

Cort frowned as he pointed, his tone reinforcing the rudeness of the gesture. "Yes, _he_ is." She stood up and dusted herself off. "I don't find you very mannerly, so I'm going to say good day to you right here." She turned away entirely from the boy and faced Crow as he reluctantly stood up to join her, giving him another back-thumping hug before walking away. "It was good catching up, Crow. I'll see you when I see you."

"And I you." Crow watched her set off on a southerly course, the big ghoul silently breaking off from his spot to join her. He turned to address the boy as soon as he was positive both were out of earshot. "Derek, next time you feel like engaging my company in conversation, don't."

"Bob says you have to shoot them all in the head, no matter what Dave says. Otherwise they might eat you and take your women." Derek lifted his arms and mimed shooting a rifle towards the ghoul's retreating form.

Crow rubbed the brim of his hat repeatedly, resisting the urge to swat Derek's hands down. _Sweet spirits, save me_. Bob was the elder brother of Ralph, Derek's friend from the Republic of Dave, and quite unfortunately a growing role model for Derek. Crow wished, not for the first time, that the boy's burgeoning sense of masculine authority would remain solely focused on the examples in town. Having been a teenager, he also knew the chances of that were slim to none. "Bob needs to allow the good sense of the land to enter his."

"Hey, what are those?"

He turned as Derek pointed in the opposite direction, sighing heavily when he spotted what the boy had. It was turning into a bang-up day. "_Those_ would be giant ants."

* * *

**If **possible, Vault 108 was even more of a mess than 92 had been, its door controls almost inoperable and the interior corroded to an alarming degree. On a more encouraging note, there were no bodies to be found. Less encouraging was the fact that there seemed to be no convenient evidence to give her an idea of what had gone on in the Vault. Silent for the start of their foray, Cort couldn't contain her thoughts as they wound deeper in.

"I can't believe we haven't found a single working terminal, or a tape, or anything."

"You're surprised? It's a fucking wreck down here."

"It's fucking _creepy_, is what it is. If you see 'Croatoan' written on any of the walls, you pick me up and leg it." Looking back behind for a moment, she nearly crashed into his back as he turned a corner and then jerked to a halt, his voice a picture of incredulity.

"What the fuck? _Gary_?"

Cort peeked around him. "Gary? Who the heck is-AUUUGH!"

* * *

**"GARY**!"

"_Charon_!" Cort screamed out and then choked as she caught a hard punch to the neck. A second after spotting the first clone that had caused Charon's disconnect, a dozen more had poured out of the corridors and connecting rooms, swamping them in a susurrus of inane self-exclamatory repetition.

Charon risked a glance toward her and then snarled as the edge of a crowbar nearly tore his cheek open, darting his head to the side just in time. The biggest target, he had thankfully gotten the worst of it, dogpiled by the majority of the clones. Unfortunately, the little bastards had turned out to be excellent melee fighters, fast and sly, and both he and Cort had quickly been forced into similar means of combat. Reduced to using his shotgun like a shortened quarterstaff as one of the last bashed furiously at him, he couldn't back up enough to get a shot off and go to her aid, and the damned _dog_ was still slumped against the wall he had hit, making garbled whines and trying to decide how his legs worked.

Taking advantage of the ghoul's distraction, Gary 25 slid between his legs, grabbed his crotch and twisted. Charon bellowed and went down like a colossal house of cards, taking his assailant with him as he tried to murder the new one underneath. Seeing this measure of success, Gary 43 attempted the same. He wrenched one of his hands free, jammed it down the front of Cort's pants and squeezed. Both of them froze. Gary 43 stared at Cort as she jerked her head from Charon to down, the triumphant look on his own face fading into one of puzzled contemplation, and started fiddling around in the undiscovered country he had stumbled upon. Cort promptly stripped her gears.

Letting out a shriek like a sodomized banshee, she started twisting and spitting, both hands coming up to claw at his face and pounding her knees into him wherever she could make contact. Gary 43 might've had a chance at blocking at least some of the onslaught, if it hadn't had one hand snugly trapped in her crotch. Charon, quite rightly deciding that someone was getting murdered, wrongly decided it was Cort based on the exponential level of volume and grabbed each of his attackers by the head, bashing them together until there was a wet, pulpy sound.

Inspired into clarity, Cort slammed her head forward into Gary 43's and finally pulled herself free, staggering up to kick him repeatedly in the groin, still screeching at the top of her lungs.

"YEAH THAT'S RIGHT FUCKPUDDLE, I'M AN INNIE!" She fell back as Dogmeat leapt onto him, the dog having finally found enough of his marbles to finish the encounter for her.

"Cort."

Her bell still somewhat rung, she watched him hitch through a swath of identical corpses with one bloody hand planted against his crotch, coughed and gave him a rather spaced look. "Charon? Uuuh...did-did they bite it?"

"_What_? No." He straightened, immediately stifling a groan and wishing that the plating over his groin had been just a bit more expansive. "I'll be fine. I can walk it off."

"We've got glowing water-"

"I am not pouring shit on my crotch because some asswipe hit the jackpot."

"Kiss and make it better?"

"This is not funny."

Cort snapped at him. "I find it funny or get angry with you, your choice."

Charon grumbled something that might have been an epithet or the word 'funny' and started looking for wherever she had been injured, feeling rather confused when he didn't find anything past a collection of superficial wounds. "I don't see a real mark on you."

"That _is_ possible, you know. Everything is."

"Possible. Not probable with how pissed off you are." He left off and gave her a final series of light taps and tugs, checking her and her armour until he was completely satisfied. "You're fine."

"Of course I am." Cort personally felt she was quite a bit less than fine, not that she was going to explain why to him; _any_ him, for that matter. She would just have a nice, nethers-focused scrub the next time they crossed the Potomac, see if Nova would let her blather on at her over it when they got back to town, and quite possibly get somewhat drunk while she did. "Where would I be without you?"

He thought dead, most likely back at the Jefferson Memorial or by the Deathclaw that had nearly killed them both, but didn't say it; slammed the door on even thinking about it. "Fuck knows. The only thing I could say with certainty is that things would still be absolutely batshit. _Everything_ around you would be absolutely batshit. And you would somehow be on fire."

She crinkled her nose up. "How the heck would I end up on fire?"

Charon shook his head and gave a fatalistic, long-suffering sigh. "Doesn't matter. _You_ would be on fire."

"Oh. Would I care?"

"That depends on whether or not you bothered to notice. Do you see any more?"

She lifted her Pip-Boy. "Uhm. No. But I'll be damned if I'm leaving before I find out where they're coming from. I think you just might get to blow something up when I do."

"Good." He turned and started down the corridor in a very precise, deliberate stride. "_Very _good."

"So now you want to tell me how you knew him..them...oh Christing hell, _whatever_?"

He stopped again and leaned against the wall. "Gary, or _a_ Gary, regularly came into trade with my first employer for slaves. Guns, ammo and explosives for what he called 'raw materials'." Charon looked back down the corridor at the cooling pile of bodies, getting a surreal feeling as his distant past crossed with his present in a distinctly unpleasant way. If possible, this Vault was even more screwed up than the last had been. _Still no answers, just more fucking questions. _"Probably why there was only one with a gun, and we're lucky for that. He was a mean, crazy little bastard, always set me on edge. Never shut up, although he made more sense than these ones. Not that that was a fucking _good_ thing."

Cort swallowed, suddenly feeling ill again. _Two down, one to go. I don't want to go down anymore_. "Subsequent generations showing marked degeneration. Makes sense, especially if they resorted to using people as a makeshift growth...probably had to break them down into a slurry...Charon."

"Cort."

"Take out all your mines and get ready to show me what you can do."

"As you wish."

* * *

_Lonesome Road is out! I wanted to update before I dove into it, and I've got another New Vegas vignette to celebrate, and because something's been bugging the beans out of me, but more on that at the bottom. For now, enjoy!_

* * *

**Charlie** glanced across the firepit as the caravanner redoubled her efforts at going after the morose sniper, who as of yet hadn't said one word to her. "What, you don't go for the ladies?"

Charlie spoke up quietly. "Cass."

"Come on fella, I'm talking to you."

Charlie raised her voice somewhat. "_Cass_."

"I'm just looking for a little fun. Hell, with your charm you just _have_ to be single-"

Charlie positively bellowed. "CASS!"

Cass whipped her head around and roared back. "WHAT?"

Charlie didn't look at her, just talked around the lump of dried coyote meat she had been methodically gnawing away at, staring at the strip in her hand it came from like it had personally offended her. "Would you very much mind leaving my fella there alone? It's more than a little insulting, you doing that right in front of me."

Cass scratched her head through her battered hat. "Well shit. Why didn't you say anything? Sorry, Charlie."

"No worries. There's another bottle of whiskey in my pack. If you can bring back something fresh to eat, you can have at 'er."

"Hot damn, that's a deal."

Boone got up as she left, strode over around the fire and finally opened his mouth when the other woman was well out of earshot. "Charlie."

She swallowed, then held her free hand up placatingly. "Now, I didn't fib on any of that. You're following me around, and you're a fella, last I checked. Her behaviour really was also very insulting to my fine set of sensibilities." Charlie dropped her hand back down and bit into the strip in the other, teeth bared and twisting her head around like a cur until she ripped off another flake of meat, again mouthing it about as she talked. "It wath that or get mysthelf into a fitht fight."

He crossed his arms. "I _don't_ need any of your help."

She plucked the as-yet unchewed flake out of her mouth to deliver a longer and more coherent speech. "And the desert doesn't need any more sun, yet it still keeps shining on, oblivious to everything and not giving a shit either way. You can sleep on the far side of me tonight, if you want. Way she seems to be, she's liable to get grabby if the second bottle doesn't take her out for the night." Finished, she popped the bit of meat back in and rather noisily started going to town on it.

"I'm not bunking down in your bush. I don't care what...Charlie?" Boone briefly broke out of his sullen attitude as she suddenly whooped and then promptly started choking, dropping the jerky into the dust to scrabble at her throat with both hands. "Charlie, spit it out." He glared back as she gave him one that clearly stated that that was exactly what she was trying to do. She was also failing miserably. Boone reached out and whacked her briskly on the back in time with her heaving, stopping when she finally hacked up the sodden wad of half-masticated canid and snapping at her testily. "You _eat_ food, not breathe it." He scowled as she started whooping again. "What the hell's gotten into you?"

"The distressing notion of you turning down the chance to get into my bush." Charlie went off even harder at the look of sudden realization on his face, and she drew her legs up under her duster until she was nothing but a shaking, cackling bundle of leather, the odd snort bursting out from under the quivering brim of her hat. Boone stared stolidly into the fire until she uncurled, wiping at her eyes with the backs of both hands. "Thank you, Boone. I haven't had an occasion to laugh like that in a very long time."

They said nothing to each other after that, Charlie only speaking a few appreciative words when Cass came back in dragging a decrepit-looking Gecko and tossing her the bottle she had promised. He didn't object when Charlie sprawled in the dirt next to him an hour later, legs crossed at the ankle, hat tilted over her face, and the long line of her body solidly between him and Cass.

* * *

**"Charlie.** It's dawn. Time to get up." Boone let out an impatient breath as she remained completely inert, and kicked lightly at her calf. "Char-!" He dropped like a stone as her legs suddenly shot out to either side of his, scissoring in a hard twist. He had both of his hands around hers a second later, the knife she was holding a bare inch from his chest as she writhed on top of him, her knees pummelling his thighs as she tried to ram them his groin. Boone took one look at her face and redoubled his efforts, starting to yell. Her eyes were completely blank and unseeing, the pupils so wide he could see his own face shouting back at him.

"CHARLIE!" A slow blink, and suddenly she was off him, one arm resting over her upraised knee and the hand clenched around the knife propping her up in the dirt as she panted, finally awake.

"Don't touch me when I'm sleeping. Should have warned you. Doesn't go well. Half the reason I bed down in a thicket."

He scrambled up, backing away. "What the _hell_ was that about?"

She coughed and spat, her voice hoarse. "I don't ask you about your bad memories. You don't ask me about mine. Next time just yell harder, or poke me with a stick or just throw a dang _rock_, anything. Hell, _piss_ on me first."

Boone crossed his arms, angry suspicion joining the adrenaline and worry. "_What_ memories? I thought you didn't have any, past a week or so before I hooked up with you. What you said about losing them, not remembering the-" She snapped and cut him off.

"_I say a lot of things_." She let out a long sigh through her nose, giving him a steady, resigned look. "Everyone assumes that when I say I've got amnesia, it's the whole kit n' kaboodle, all of myself, but I can remember just about everything, except some of the particulars surrounding my death, some other bits and pieces. But it's easier to get by if people think you're a blank slate. No history, no baggage, and a whole lot of sympathy." Charlie glanced down, then off into the distance. "I prefer it."

"So just who the hell are you, then. Just who the hell have I been hanging my ass out to dry with this whole time."

As ever, Charlie seemingly paid no attention to the acid laced into his tone. "Who was I, you mean. Doesn't matter. I died. Should have stayed snug in the hole that checkerboarded whoremaster put me into. The joke of it is, I don't even remember that fool robot pulling me out. Maybe I'd feel alive if I did. All I do remember is the dirt hitting me, and the taste of sand in my mouth. It felt like my whole head was nothing but a bag of sand, and it was pouring out of my forehead to cover me up, and now everything is sideways when I look at it, like I'm half out of step." She raised her hands in a helpless gesture that was completely out of place on her, staring up at him. "I wish you had killed me instead, you'dve done it right, you _would've_, wouldn't y-" The beseeching look on her face fell off immediately at the expression on his, and she turned abruptly, grabbing up her hat and almost scrambling away from him. "I need to get Cass moving. This conversation didn't happen. Please don't touch me to wake me up again, Boone. I'd be much obliged."

* * *

_ As I said before, I do read descriptions on the main Fallout page to see what people are dinging around with, and it seems like everyone writes the Courier as being a total amnesiac. She/He, if you pay attention to in-game dialogue, isn't. They mention being to Reno and Utah, a male Courier talks about knocking someone up in Montana. I'm not saying sticking 100% to the source material is necessary(God knows I've got plans to screw around as much as possible in the third installment of Cort's story), but I haven't seen any indications that people are sticking to this bit, and it was driving me nuts._


	54. Go Ask, While She's Ten Feet Tall

_So! I got hideous writers block, bought Dragon Age II(spoiler-free aside to fellow players: WHAT THE FUCK, BLONDIE?), played it four times, joined the army reserves, replayed Dragon Age:Origins, wrote crappy DA fic while I tried to bash sections of this story together and then replayed DAII. I finally found the connecting dots again, buried somewhere in a movie marathon involving too much wine. Thank you so much reviewers! You guys are awesome, and keep me trying._

* * *

**Cort **looked up from her scope as Charon crawled up beside her. "I don't know what side I should be rooting for."

"The raiders. Easier for us to kill." He nudged her aside and glanced through the scope, checking to see if anything significant had changed since his slow return from reconnoitering the outskirts of Wheaton Armoury. Finding it too tempting a target to pass by, they had found it already occupied by half a dozen raiders and three Enclave troopers, caught in a stalemate with each other, and had dug in under the radio tower overlooking the complex to watch. Grunting, he relinquished it again. "We probably wouldn't have to put in the effort if we had time to wait. The building's irradiated to hell inside." He tried not to look too guilty as Cort hissed at him.

"_What_? How close did you _get_?"

She started as series of explosions went off, and he smiled darkly as it sparked both groups into a renewed bout of shooting, bullets and plasma flying everywhere. "Close enough."

Cort looked from the carnage below to his self-satisfied expression. "You know, I think I like encouraging you. I get good results." She returned the smile as his shoulders twitched back briefly. Charon had blown the remains of the cloning lab in Vault 108 apart, setting charges wherever Cort indicated and wherever he thought something looked complex enough to warrant it. It hadn't fixed anything, hadn't given her any answers, but it had been something, a small measure of control. She held tight to it as she held out the sniper rifle to him. "I like asking you, too. Can you kill the rest of them for me?"

Charon eyed it, then her as he took it, his face inscrutable. "I'd like you to tell me to."

"Then do it. I order you to kill them." Cort pressed against his side as he put his eye to the scope and obeyed.

* * *

**Agatha's **violin clenched firmly in her arm, Cort trudged purposefully across the bridge to the tiny hidden clearing that held the old woman's house, spraddling a little bit as she put one of her feet down too hard and sent it swaying. "We won't tell her what happened. I'll give her the violin, and then distract her with the sheet music if she starts asking questions. It'll help cover you, too."

Charon grabbed for the ropes at his sides and grimly looked ahead, resolving to hang back slightly. According to Cort, Agatha was an elderly -_very _elderly- recluse with no outside contact aside from the trading caravans, and one of the few people she adored. He might as well give her the opportunity for a few pleasant moments, in case things went to hell. He snorted. _In case. Right. When_. "You're going to need a bigger book."

"Well, it's dark. It'll help? I just hope she's not asleep yet." Winding her way into the tiny little clearing and up to the door, Cort checked her hands, cleared her throat, tucked the violin behind her legs and knocked politely on the door. She smiled broadly when it opened, beaming at the tiny, grey-haired waif before her. "Hi Agatha! Long time, yeah?"

Agatha clapped her hands delightedly. "Oh my dear, it's so good to see you! Come in, come in. Are you back with Crow?" She crouched slightly as Dogmeat yipped, running her hands back and forth over his soft ears. "Of course you're here. It's very good to see you too!"

Cort slipped into the house and deposited the violin on the table before taking up a flanking position out of habit, blushing hard when she realized what she was doing. _Right, big threat here. She might flip her beans and gum us all to death, better get ready._ "Uhm, not exactly. I'm still travelling with a friend, though. C'mon Charon, don't be shy!" She grinned as he walked up and shot her an exasperated glare, heart in her throat.

Agatha looked up and blinked at the hulk outside her doorway. Charon braced himself as she tottered forward, ready to be screeched at and out, then nearly keeled over when she broke into a delighted smile and gently patted at his chest. "_My_, aren't you a splendid big fellow. Someone certainly watered you well growing up." She smiled wider as he continued to do nothing but look startled. "I'm far too old to be afraid of anything, dear. Now you come in and sit down before the crick in my neck sets in permanently. There's a good boy."

She stopped in her tracks when she turned and saw what Cort was holding out.

"You found it! Oh, you found it!" Agatha took the violin and hugged it close before hurrying over to her little table.

"Yes! that's not all I brought back, either." Rifling around under her chest plating as Charon sat down with a carefully blank look on his face, Cort pulled out the two music books she had managed to scrounge up. "New songs!"

"My dear, you have certainly outdone yourself. Now put those on the stand and let's see if I can do the same." Agatha broke the hermetic seal on the case, opened it and reached in without hesitation, drawing out the violin. She ran a hand over the mellow wood, once, twice, then turned, her face serious.

"Right then. Down to business. What would you like to hear, dear?"

"Something of your own?"

Eyes shining, she turned and plucked the bow from the case, then tucked the violin under her chin. "Oh, I have just the thing, written just for this violin. I've been waiting so long to play it."

* * *

**Charon **watched the stiff-jointed old woman work at the bow, fingers moving from testing presses to sliding over the neck of the violin for a few moments of pretty, simple notes before she stopped and dropped her arms. Deciding she was finished, he tensed to get up before Agatha stretched up on her toes, arms out and shoulders rolling before she replaced the violin and gave them an intense look.

"There. Now we've got the warm up noodling out of the way." Agatha raised the bow.

It was like someone else had walked into her, or finally come out of hiding from behind the wrinkled face and tired body, fingers and bow moving in slow drags that went on almost interminably and sweeps so fast they nearly blurred, strands of white hair coming loose to fly around her face as Agatha poured out her song. It felt like she was pulling at his guts, working her way deeper in the longer she played, soaring from throaty lows that nearly dipped below his hearing into sounds so impossibly high and sweet that it made him ache like Cort did when she cried out. It moved out to fill every part of him, sinking in until it felt like he would burst from confusion and want. He wanted to laugh himself sick or fight until he was bloody and screaming, do anything to empty himself out. He wanted to crush Cort against a wall and fuck her until _she _was screaming; he wanted to kneel at her feet and cry.

Agatha did with her song what only Cort had done to that point; reached inside his heart, wrenched it wide open and laid him bare. It scared him to death. He was ready to tear the violin away, to bolt from it, do anything to make it stop, when Cort's hand slid into his. Charon clung to the feeling of it, the slender fingers lacing with his own, her thumb pressing into his palm, and forced himself to remain still until Agatha mercifully stopped. Cort swung her feet and sighed, looking entirely too delighted at what had just happened.

"Thank you, Agatha. That was wonderful."

She let out a sigh and primly pushed her sweaty hair back. "Thank you for indulging me, dear. Now go off and have a good sleep. We'll have breakfast before you head out in the morning."

Charon left the house at this, not waiting for or wanting to make any teeth-grinding effort at pleasantries, and kept his back to the house until he heard Cort shut the door behind her.

"Look, she gave me this for you! I think she likes you. There's also the fact that it would probably tear her arm off if she tried to use it." Charon held out his hand when she proffered a modified and thoroughly wicked-looking scoped .44, the word 'Blackhawk' engraved up the barrel in dim script. Peering at it, his eyebrows rose in appreciation despite the mess his head was in. It wouldn't have harmed even a child on the safe end of things, the heavy pistol having been modified to be entirely recoilless.

He shot a look towards the house and then went back to eyeing Cort as she walked past to settle down to take care of Dogmeat, humming Agatha's tune to herself all the while. Tucking the pistol away, he drew out spreading their blankets and making their normal, sparse little camp as long as possible before speaking up again. "What was that. What she did."

Cort spun around on her toes. "_Amazing_. I want her to play it again and again. She didn't say, but the first bit she warmed up with was Dvorak. I need to find her more books. It sounds even better than it did in the Vault." She gave her Pip-Boy a wry smile and flicked the speaker. "Definitely better than this. I used to listen to something every day before bed."

He opened his mouth to ask her how she had managed to subject herself to that every day without going crazy, then caught himself, substituting another comment. "You liked that very much." Cort smiled, repeating the very thing that had made him hate it.

"Yes. It puts the missing parts back into me." Cort grunted in surprise as he suddenly grabbed her, giving him a bemused look when he started fumbling at her hip plating. "Did something for you too, huh?"

"Something." Pulling her belt loose, he yanked her pants and underwear down to her knees, dropping to his own in front of her as he did.

"Hey! Charon, what-oh _God_." Cort sucked in a breath and whimpered as he pressed his face into her, one arm under her rear to steady her and the other wrapped around her leg to hold her in place. She grasped at his shoulders, feeling like she was tearing apart. "Charon, it's too much, you need to-"

He didn't stop until she cried out for him.

* * *

**They **had barely walked into Vault 106 before things went spectacularly and ludicrously to hell. Cort wasn't just stoned, she was _exquisitely_ stoned. For Charon however, whatever was being pumped through the abandoned corridors and rooms appeared to be the ghoul equivalent of hay fever. Where Cort's system had been swamped into trippy quiescence, his had gone into overdrive trying to rid itself of an unending irritant. Eyes streaming, he planted his hand against the wall and let out yet another explosive sneeze.

"_kaCHOW_!" He swiped at his face and snuffled. On the bright side, if you could call it that, Cort being blitzed out of her head had prevented her from having as violent a reaction to the insane inhabitants of this Vault as she had the others. Unfortunately, it had also prevented her from being almost any use at all. _Like I'm much fucking better. _"Cort, we need to get out of here. I can't see straight." He looked down blearily as Dogmeat pressed into his legs, trying to take encouragement out of the animal like she normally did. The mutt was the only one of them that appeared to be unaffected, and had been taking up all of the slack as they wandered and looped and backtracked.

Cort spun slowly in place, her gaze ticking around before latching onto him. "I can see up your nose. But...you have no nose. Whooooa man. It's there and not there at the same time. There's something not there that should be there, and it's important." She squinted and slumped closer, peering rather unsteadily into his face. "You need to blow it."

"I need to get you back outside."

Her mouth hardened and she jerked her eyes up to his as he reached out, giving him a glassy, brittle look. "_No_. We're staying until I decide we're leaving, and that's an order. There's something about the door...we...we _can't_ go out...don't you dare try to haul me out, I'm not done yet. I have to remember what it..." Her face went slack again, and she started off down the hall. "The blue air down here is so nice, don't you think? We just need to take it in."

Groaning heavily, Charon dropped his arm and followed after her.

After that, for whatever ungodly reason, she had starting referring to him as Schrodinger's cat, who or whatever that was, or at least until she decided four syllables was bringing her down and degenerated to the much easier(and apparently _much _more amusing) title of 'Kitty'.

"Do I _look_ like a fucking cat to you?"

"Well, right now actually-"

"_Nevermind_."

"Well, what do you want to be then?"

"What? Oh for fuck's sakes. Try mother hen, that's not...it's better than fucking 'Kitty'."

She leered. "Really? Cause you really seem to like fucking puss..."

She trailed off, and Charon swore as her eyes went wide as saucers and tracked around the room. He knew that look, had seen it a hundred times on a sea of strung-out faces thanks to Ahzrukhal's uncaring greed. _Fuck_. "Cort? Cort, what is it, tell me. Tell me what you see."

"Which one's real. There's three of him, which one's real. _Daddy_-" She reached out, and then her face crumpled. "He's gone."

"He wasn't there, Cort. You're hallucinating."

"No, he was there, I saw him, and-" She went from sorrow to shrieking in an instant, flailing so hard she careened straight into the wall and rebounded almost far enough to hit the other, then promptly started punching it and the air around her. "_Get away from me you dickless little fucks_!"

"_Shit_." Charon snapped his arms out and grabbed her as she stopped to rip her helmet loose to use as a bludgeon, pinning her against his chest. He winced as she shrieked straight into his face, then snarled down as Dogmeat whined in response, the dog dancing back and forth as he tried to get closer while avoiding her kicking feet. "Either help me or stop your bitching, I don't need both of you going at it!" That done, he pushed Cort up against the wall and pressed himself around as much of her as possible, tucking his face in next to hers until they were breathing the same inch of air. "No, they aren't. They'd have to go through me first and they can't, can they?"

"No?" Her eyes twitched around to his and focused slightly. "No."

"What can get past me, Cort?"

"Nothing?"

"That's right. Nothing. There's nothing. You can't even see them anymore." Charon waited for her to accept this statement, knowing there wasn't any way she could deny it. The way he was shoved into her, she would've been lucky to see anything past his own mess of a face. "They're not even there."

"No, they can't be." She let out a long, languid sigh, her eyes glazing over again. "It's too nice in here for them to be here."

He jerked his head down as Dogmeat suddenly bumped against his legs, looking up at him with an inquisitive expression. Dangling from his jaws was a jury-rigged gas mask, and Charon slumped with relief. "Thank fuck. Good mutt. Very, _very _good." Taking the mask from the dog, Charon pulled it over Cort's head and knotted the straps so tightly there was no hope of her getting it off without him cutting it free, slapping her helmet over top for good measure. "Breathe deep into that, jackass."

"It smells like rancid sebum in here."

Whatever that was. "Good. It'll work quicker that way."

When they reached the bottom of the Vault, killing what he dearly hoped were the absolute last whackjobs inhabiting the place, he was more than thankful that it hadn't worked as fast as he wanted it to. They had finally hit something bad enough to make even him feel ill, and he didn't want to imagine what it would have done to a clear-headed Cort.

Behind a heavy security door was a shallow cave gouged straight through the bulkhead and into the bedrock. The people who had dug it, the scattered Pip-Boys marking them as the original Vault dwellers of 106, had used their bare hands at the end to a point past all reason and their-

_Distal phlanges_, Charon thought, _She told me those are called the distal phlanges, or they would be if they weren't fucking gone,_

-fingertips. It was a sick and desperate madness, spelled out all over the walls in black stains and chalky, ancient streaks of grease leading down to a pile of bones, the empty figures laid out like rotting cordwood. It didn't help that Cort was standing smack in the middle of them, digging at the low ceiling with a bemused look on her face and still high as a kite.

"Cort, stop that. You'll hurt your fing...yourself."

"It's chert, though. Pretty." Satisfied when she had gotten something loose enough to pull free and jam into a pocket, she turned around and pointed to her feet. "Though this isn't right. Something about this _itches_." She reached a hand back, appearing to gauge something. "Or does it make perfect sense? We're the farthest...furthest?"

Charon tried snucking in a breath and finally gave up on trying through his nose, letting his mouth hang open. "All of it itches. This is the last room. You've seen everything, so let's go back."

"M'kay. You're sounding pretty stuffy."

They made it as far back as the Living Quarters before she veered off again.

* * *

**Cort** sighed and started singing under her breath. "It's automatic, light fantastic, breathe it in, the air's elastic..._oooh_. Look, I missed one." She wandered over to a terminal they had passed on the way in, lured by a new bright, blinking cursor. Next to it, enticing and green, was a message.

_'You Know You Want To...' _ Cort bit her lip, then tapped the Execute key with a small laugh as Charon slapped both hands over his face. The screen shifted, filling with words.

_'Note To Self: Sit back and enjoy the ride. Why worry? This place seems great. It's about time we kick back, relax and forget about the desolate, hopeless, bleak and blasted wasteland outside. Have we enjoyed a frosty Nuka-Cola yet today? Well, we ought to fix that.'_

"We should fix that, but I'll have to go home first to get one." She frowned. "I need to get out and go home."

Charon piped up behind her. "Yes, we certainly do. That's what we _were_ doing."

She opened her mouth to agree with the ghoul, then turned back to another message on the screen. "Just let me finish reading this, and we'll go, promise. It won't take long. We don't have long."

_'A Note To Me: This place is great, I think its time to accept the new and embrace this change. Relax.'_

Cort wrinkled her nose up. "Why would I embrace change? Change has almost unilaterally blown chunks. No, I need-" She blinked as yet another message swam into clarity.

_'Another Note To Me: Come on, don't you like it better here? Breathe deep in the blue. Relax.'_

"I can't breathe deep, not in this thing." The line popped up between her eyebrows as she poked at the gas mask, waiting for the next missive from herself. As vile as the stench was, it was clearing the cotton out of her head. "But I'm not taking it off."

_'Please Read Me: Seriously, this place has everything we need, enjoy it while we're here.'_

"No Nuka-Cola, no sunshine, no stars, no. No no no." Things were definitely clearing, and with them a rising sense of urgency. "No. You tell me what I _really_ need to do, and _now_."

_'Fine, Be That Way: I have nothing more to say to you, we're through here.'_

"We're done when I say we're done, you little sonofabitch!" Cort rammed a fist into the keys and screeched, stopping short when another message popped up.

_'All Right, All Right: Jesus, we can't half yell. Look, I'm not kidding. If we stay here we won't have to worry about anything ever again. There'll even be new people eventually for the other one to kill and keep them happy. That way we won't have to listen to their bitching.'_

"What? Do you honestly want to stay in another fucking Vault for the rest of our lives? I sure as shit and kittens don't, and we need to take care of Charon." She flapped an arm back behind her, gesticulating wildly. "Have you been paying attention to what I've been calling him? He must be having a fit by now, and we promised. We can find people for him to blow up outside."

Cort crossed her arms and waited, the prim smile on her face fading off when she read the next message.

_'We'll Probably Regret This: Fine, fine, okay, you're right. Friggin' party pooper. _

_PS: I wasn't talking about Charon and you know it. We'll be living in hell until you accept that, ignoring your situation is only going to make it worse. Especially since the door's been left ajar. That noise is driving us crazy. _

_PPS: Right that thing we should know. Hey, weren't we supposed to be thinking about that rigged Vault door?'_

The screen blurred again, the words melting into one last message.

_PPPS: I think we just peed ourselves. Okay, maybe the blue isn't that great. So sue me._

Cort spun around and started walking fast, not quite touching a jog. "They were trying to dig their way out." She clawed at her face, trying to pull the mask loose. "They went as far as they could from it so it couldn't interfere, I can see it in my head."

Charon reached out to pull her hand down. "No, Cort. You have to leave it on."

"I have to have my full lung capacity available. Stupid, stupid, stupid! They weren't at the door...we have to get back to the door. We have to get out of here."

"About fucking-" He stopped as a braying klaxon started up from higher in the Vault, and Cort's face went dead white as she screamed.

"_RUN_!"


	55. Chase That Rabbit and Fall

**"Get** out, get out! If it closes we're trapped in here for good!" Cort gave up scrabbling at the mask on her face and poured all her attention into sprinting as hard as she could, air heaving in and out of her in time with her feet. _FASTERfasterFASTERfaster-_

He was faster, pulling ahead as she strained to keep up, and then the inevitable happened. Cort slipped on a patch of blood and went down in a clatter, thrusting her arms out to goad Charon onward as he skidded to a halt, gripping at the walls to help stop himself. "_Don't wait for me, run_!"

Cort howled as he snatched her up and did.

It was like flying, if flying came with blurring legs, big, clutching hands and a low roar that rose and fell above her as the ghoul pulled air in like a bellows. He was so fast that the breath in her own lungs didn't have time to be jarred loose against the arm snugged into her gut, the balls of his feet only touching the ground long enough for the next stride.

They definitely flew when they reached the entrance hall and the rapidly closing gap to the outside, Dogmeat already on the other side and barking wildly. Charon leapt for it, spinning in mid air to let his weight carry them through, her boots sailing through just before the massive door rolled shut. He crashed to the ground with Cort on top of him, sliding for a few feet before catching up on a snag in the floor. She was up and shedding everything off a second later, pack, guns and helmet flying before she yanked at the gas mask.

"Get this thing off me. _Now_." He stood up and cut her free, and she rubbed vigorously at the red ring left around her nose and mouth, swearing when she touched where the mask had chafed up against the old break. Still panting, she rounded on him. "What the _fuck _did I tell you."

Charon bristled. "I _did_ what you told me."

"You know what I meant, and you didn't do it."

"I wasn't leaving you."

"_Godfuckingdamnit_, Charon. Leaving me didn't matter, as long as you got out you could reopen the door for me!"

He blinked. "Oh."

"Yes, _oh_." Cort gave him a thoroughly unimpressed and acidic glare before turning to the control panel and almost slamming her pack down beside it. Pissed off felt better than terrified, and she rode the emotion as far as she could as she pulled out every tool she had collected, dismantling the panel piece by piece until it was nothing but a metal pole sprouting a few paltry wires. "There. Now we're going home. I need to talk to Gob." She stood up and dusted off her rear. _I've had enough of this flailing, sopping yellow-spined shit. Let's try grim self-determination instead. Maybe I'll even believe I'm not a coward, for once. _

Charon fell in beside her as she grabbed up her things and headed for the exit, looking completely non-apologetic about his actions. She found it infuriating and a comfort in equal measures. "And then?"

"Then we're going to check out Vault 87. We'll get that stupid fucking G.E.C.K. while we're at it, too. If it was that important a piece of equipment, then maybe...I don't know." She kicked the slatted door open and headed back into the Wasteland, hands clenching and unclenching, clenching and unclenching, over and over. "If it's important, there have to be people. People need to take care of important things." _I'll be my father's daughter, I will. I will._

* * *

**Angry** and rapidly approaching unhinged, Cort had led them south, aiming for the closest roadway marked on her screen. She wanted to be surrounded by straight, machine-made things, however ruined and tattered, and she very much wanted to kill. Both impulses were because of the Vaults. Artificial shapes were a panacea, even as much as the chaos of the natural world was an escape from the prison they had so obviously been. That fuzzy realization was driving her second need.

She was confused, knew that if she thought about it she wouldn't be, which would be _worse_, and the best thing to prevent that would be to find a distraction. What better than one that let her take it out on the people she blamed for everything? Roads meant people travelling, and people travelling meant the Enclave was waiting somewhere along the way to stop them. So far, all she had found were raiders, deserted rail lines and a few Super Mutants. It was aggravating in the extreme.

Cort kicked at a rusted out can and looked around at the derelict freight cars surrounding them. "Somewhere named 'Jury Street' should have more interesting surroundings than this. Like, some kind of backdrop for slim men in fedoras and film noir, rundown factories to avoid the fuzz in. Not shitty railyards screaming out low-rent 'Grapes of Wrath' transport opportunities."

Charon looked up from the pile of refuse he was digging through to stare at her, raising an eyebrow.

She flapped an arm back. "I know, I know, you don't get it, I sound like a loon. I'm just tired. And cranky."

"I noticed."

"And being possibly, just a bit, unusually unforgiving."

"I noticed that, too."

"We'll finish looking, then we'll go find a place to sleep. And I will, as long as I can. You can tell me when I've had enough."

He made a complacent-sounding grunt in response and went back to trash picking, looking for anything useful. Cort huffed out a sigh and went to start on the cars, pocketing stray caps and oddities as she went. Coming around to one with a missing side, she brightened slightly at a jumbled mess of shopping cart cages. "Well hey there, fella."

"What is it?"

"A teddybear."

He grunted again. "You've got one."

"So? Everybody needs a friend, even Eddy. Especially Eddy." Trying to worm her hand in through one of the gaps, she made kissy noises at the bear, which earned her another stare.

"_Somebody_ needs a fucking nap."

Cort rolled her eyes and yanked at the carts. "Regardless, I'm not going to leave the poor guy in there. Everybody needs to be free, too." Finally popping the front cart loose, she crowed and plucked out the bear, giving it a hug. "Awesomesauce! Okay, let's all-" A long, low roar cut her off, right before Dogmeat went absolutely ballistic. Cort spun as something came around the far side of the embankment, and she looked up, then up, and up once more, straight into the piggy face of a Behemoth, its fire hydrant club raised high. "Shit our Christing _pants_."

Dogmeat pelting away as he had been taught to, both her and Charon instantly grabbed up their guns and sent their packs flying as the monstrosity lumbered towards them, scrambling for anything that would give them an advantage to move. They would need it; the Behemoth was easily as large as the same creature that had assaulted the courtyard at Chevy Chase. Feet feeling like lead and heart in her throat, Cort wailed. "Ah Jesus, ah _Jesus_, why wouldn't you let me bring George? This would be over if I had George!"

Charon snarled, darting backwards in the opposite direction from her to divide the attention between them. "Why don't you shoot more and bitch less?"

"I AM!" Cort aimed for the Behemoth's legs and fired, her hand flicking out the lever on the repeater almost before the bullet had a chance to hit home.

They kept spinning around the Behemoth, shooting and running as it wavered, trying to decide which annoyance to chase after, before it finally decided to end the matter. Ignoring both, it stomped over to the embankment, picked up a derelict car and hurled it at Charon, then turned all of its attention towards Cort, sprinting faster than anything that big had a right to be. Horror-stricken, she had time to watch the car crash to the ground on top of the ghoul before she was yanked right out of the world.

She was fine and fighting in the air, fine rising all the way past knees to chest and over its face, through a stinking, inquisitive snuffle, right up until its mouth opened up and its throat closed around her feet and one more part of her crumbled up and checked out for the coast.

* * *

**Charon** cracked one milky eye open, rolling it around in a full circuit before the second carefully joined in, helping to confirm that he had not in fact finally bit it. The car's busted frame had slammed down sideways around him, a rusted-out needle threading itself with nearly seven feet of crouched-up ghoul. Putting 'not dead' at a higher priority than 'rattled to shit', Charon gripped his shotgun and scrambled out of the car. He made it just in time to see Cort go skyward. What happened next was one of the worst things he had ever seen.

Letting out an incoherent bellow, he fired once, twice, and the Behemoth looked almost ludicrously surprised for a moment before it horked Cort back out, strings of drool slipping off from her hips to her toes as she swung loose in the air. Heavy head swinging around, it focused in on Charon once more, and he screamed again, this time in desperate relief.

He stomped and waved his arms, fired off another shot, not sure of what he was doing but at least hoping that it would result in Cort being set loose. If it decided to chuck her, at least he would be in a position to play catch. "Come on you shitsucking motherfucker! I'm right here! _Come and fucking get me_!" It did nothing but watch him, chuffing in annoyance as more buckshot peppered against its lower half, and Charon ripped a frag grenade from his belt, counting to three before sending it in a line drive toward its armoured crotch. "FUCKING EAT _ME_!"

He had timed it perfectly. The grenade exploded, sending shrapnel into the Behemoth's thighs and fully committing its attention towards him; but instead of dropping or hurling Cort away, it tossed her over and straight into the rigged cage riding high on its back. There was only one thing to do, then. Charon didn't hesitate.

Slipping his shotgun over his back he crouched long enough to snatch his knife from his boot and came up running, heading straight for the Behemoth. He hit the dirt and rolled past as it lunged, the fire hydrant missing him by inches and cracking the hardpan apart. Charon was up in a handful of steps, leaping with his arms and legs streched back in an arc. Both hands came down hard on a knotted, gnarled calf, the left digging into the green flesh the knife in the right had just penetrated to the hilt. The Behemoth twisted back to slap a hand down next to his head, and he climbed even higher, up and over the armour on its thighs and digging into its lower back where he clung like a limpet.

Charon clenched his jaw and pulled his legs in tight as the Behemoth began spinning so fast he felt a heavy weight building in his hips and chest, trying to keep his wits and make himself a smaller target for the reaching, massive hands. Whenever the dim brute stopped he unfurled and gained a few more feet, getting as far as he could before it started trying to shake him off and praying it was too stupid to figure out it could just roll and flatten him to death.

The inevitable happened just as he reached Cort, crumpled up and silent at the bottom of the cage, and he clung to the bars with his free hand as the Behemoth roared and started to tilt backwards. Boot soles squealing against the metal as he scrambled higher, Charon laid into the back of its neck so fast the knife blurred. It twisted again, roared as one of the ghoul's thrusts hit home between vertebrae, then slowly crashed to the ground, the force of impact smacking into the train cars around them hard enough to send back a flat, final echo.

Charon sucked the air back into his lungs in a painful wheeze, then started wiggling himself free. The dying Behemoth had turned enough to keep from crushing them both, but it had been a near miss, the cage Cort was caught in having created a space just large enough for him to shelter in. Unfortunately, it had crumpled up around her in the process. She was pinned flat from what he could feel, the wide mesh almost pancaking her to the ground, her breath coming in short, irregular little whimpers. She hadn't said a word since ending up halfway in the thing's gullet, which wasn't really a surprising response. She had a distinct aversion to the idea of being eaten, and this time it had been a pretty fucking sore sight worse than ferals gnawing on her arms or Jack and Bill nipping little tidbits off her thighs.

"Cort. Cor-ah, _shit_!" Charon swore as a sudden gush of hot, slimy blood flooded over him, oozing down the back of his armour and into his shirt. It was pouring out of the gaping wounds he had gouged into the thing to kill it, and he had time before it slopped over Cort to ask himself why he hadn't thought of a better way to off the thing before wishing he had. She came back into herself, tried to move away from the mess, and started screaming like a banshee when she realized she couldn't even shift a bare inch. He heard her turn her head and suck in a breath, taking a mouthful of blood along with it. Trying to scream again produced muffled, choking coughs. At this rate, she would drown herself before he could get her loose.

Wanting to get a better idea of the situation before he tried anything, Charon wormed his fingers through the mesh and fumbled at her Pip-Boy until he found the light switch and flicked it on, filling the space with a smeared swampy light. What he saw only made him swear even harder. Parts of of the old carts had sheared on impact towards the bottom, and at least one of Cort's legs were skewered through to the ground. Every move that jarred it produced a new sobbing whimper that cut through her other cries.

"Cort?"

"Charon it at me it ate me it ate me I'm in it you're in it it _ate us_-"

A low pummeling noise started up behind him, and he rolled around fast enough to get hit by a swath of flying mud, spattering against his face and blinding him for a horrifyingly long second until a slobbery tongue wiped it away.

"_Mutt_." Charon had never been so happy to see the dog in his life. "Get in here and fix her." He started pulling the dog in by the armour, then stopped when he snapped at his hands.

Dogmeat yipped and backed up, nose to the ground as his front paws started pistoning again, gouging out the muddied dirt so quickly the blood soaked into it frothed. Catching on, the ghoul started pushing dirt out from around the cage and up, Dogmeat spraying it out behind him as fast as he could replace it.

After several minutes of digging and swearing and cutting away chunks of Behemoth, he got her out under open sky, cage and all, something he had hoped would help snap her back into sense, but she was still screaming and tearing herself to pieces. He couldn't touch her, and she wasn't listening, no matter how loudly he yelled. Charon rubbed a hand over his face as he frantically sifted through his memories, searching for anything he could use to distract her with. It came to him in a flash as Cort tried to twist around, laying the side of her calf wide open. He pushed back and dropped low so she could see his face, took in a deep breath, and very hesitantly started to sing.

"Every time my baby and I have a quarrel, I swear I won't give in. Then my baby starts to smile at me, and I know I just can't win. When my little girl is smiling, there's nothing more I can say. I see those big bright eyes, and then I realize that girl is gonna get her way."

Eyes going round as saucers as she stared at him, Cort slowly quieted, babbling words overlapping and then falling beneath the song, and he kept on, sounding more confident with every line. He did it with no embellishment, just brusquely stated each word, a slight tonal change from one to the other the only hint to what he was doing.

"When my little girl is smiling, I can't stay mad at her for long. Why should I want to fight, when I can hold her tight? I just don't care who's right or wrong. When my little girl is smiling, it's the greatest thrill there can be. She gets her way it's true, but I know I won't be blue, as long as she just smiles for me."

Wrenching at the thick wire, he repeated the song twice more until there was a hole big enough to drag her through, pulling the last verse out to keep her docile until he had worked her legs free. He picked her up and carried her to a patch of ground that wasn't sodden with blood and filth, then busied himself with cleaning the clotting gore off of her wherever he could manage it, using Stimpaks on her legs and giving her bottle after bottle of glowing water until the ugly bruises he found on her stomach and hips disappeared.

"Cort?" She snuffled loudly and looked at him, genuinely looked at him, and he finally relaxed. "Better?"

"Where did you learn that song?"

He pulled out the tail of his shirt, the only clean cloth he had left to hand, and gently pressed it against her nose. "Blow." Cort obediently snorted into it, and he repeated the action until he was satisfied she had cleared all the dreck out of herself that she could. "I heard Barrows singing it."

She boggled. "Barrows _sings_?"

"Only when he gets drunk, I think."

Her eyes widened even further. "Barrows gets _drunk_?"

"Yes. Once a year, and never in public. I was in the clinic on one of the occasions he made a mess of himself."

"Why?"

Still thinking of her laying her leg open, he misinterpreted the question. "Some drugfucked smoothskin thought it would be funny to set me on fire."

"_What_? Tell me you killed them. I'll kill them!"

"No." Encouraged as he saw how enraged she got at this, he kept going. "I wasn't allowed to retaliate unless it involved an actual weapon or was directed towards Ahzrukhal. Fuckstick found most things amusing when they were done to me." Caught up dickering with someone, Ahzrukhal hadn't noticed immediately, and he hadn't been able to put himself out. Most of the patrons had turned into a mob and descended on the smoothskin, while a few others had grabbed any nearby bottle that wasn't filled with pure alcohol and doused his leg with it. The flames had eaten through his boot and pants, burning him from the top of his foot to halfway up his thigh. Barrows had been half in the bag already when he saw the damage, and whatever the doctor's face had been like after getting an explanation had been enough to make Ahzrukhal bolt at the sight of it. From that day forward, the sleazy bastard had refused to set foot in the Chop Shop again.

After that, his old employer had also made one of his rare concessions to decency, if you could call it that, and outfitted him with leather armour again. "He also tweaked my orders to include immolation." Charon snorted. "I'm lucky nobody came in with acid or tried to drug me."

"Why weren't you in armour?"

"He sold it as soon as he bought my contract."

"He was _that _fucking greedy that he sold the clothes off your back?"

"Yes, but that wasn't the primary reason. He didn't trust my contract and thought that being unarmoured would make it easier to kill me if he had to."

* * *

**"Pft**." Cort gripped his pauldron and staggered up, then stripped herself down until she was naked as a jay. "Clean up, please? I'm going to take a bath and just...decompress." _Since I was almost compressed all the way. I can't be mad though, it was the sensible thing, greens should eat their little girls, aaall the way up_. She choked off a jittery giggle, walked over to the nearest drift of sand and started rolling, scrubbing the blood off with great, dusty handfuls of it.

When she had finished with herself and done the same to her armour she sat there in the failing sunshine with her clean chin resting on her naked knees, waiting for Charon to finish with his own end of things and not moving until he tossed her a fresh set of clothes. Dressing, she finally turned to face the Behemoth that had nearly killed them both, wondering if dissecting another one apart would give her any answers.

"What _are _these things?" Cort shook her head as something in it vehemently told her that she didn't want to know the answer to this question, that it was a trap this time, not a puzzle, and she teetered at the edge of the abyss before she started backpedaling, scrabbling back as fast as she could from the mental cliff she was on. It was easy to compartmentalize, shove it away; until Charon spoke up and quietly pushed her off.

"They're people, Cort."

* * *

_Hope to have another chapter in a week. I'm just going to stab at it until something happens. 3's to you guys! _

_Song is 'When my Little Girl is Smiling', written by Gerry Goffin / Carole King, 1962. You can find it on Youtube performed by The Drifters._


	56. Disappearing in Plain Sight

_Thanks for the new reviews, peeps! If there are any typos in this I apologize, I finished editing rather late, but it's up!_

* * *

**"Wh**-what? What do you mean?"

"They're mutated people."

Cort balled her hands into fists, arms straight as pins down by her sides. "Explain. _Now_."

Feeling an increasing sense of foreboding, Charon did. He had gotten the information back at the Citadel, during her catatonia. He had taken her to the washroom and left her inside once he thought she could be trusted, trying to keep a small amount of her dignity intact by giving her as much privacy as could be spared. Waiting in the hall before he went in to tidy her up, he had listened to two scribes talking about the creatures, how different they were from the ones out West, and how much they hoped what happened to captives never happened to them. He could wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment, having also been forced into his own ruined state. Otherwise, it only meant that killing them was now a justice and a mercy, instead of just an inconvenience.

Never one to volunteer information unless it was absolutely necessary and not seeing how the knowledge would help to fight the mindless brutes, it hadn't occurred to him to share the discovery with Cort. He had had more important things on his mind, and then she had been either too listless or caught up with other events to mention her desire to know to anyone at that point, let alone him. It was now more than clear he had erred in keeping it to himself. Badly.

"Why the _hell_ didn't you tell me this before? I've been wracking my brains over these...these _things_ for nearly as long as I've been out here!"

"You didn't ask."

"And you didn't think something like that was _important_?"

Charon didn't reply, since the question was obviously a rhetorical one. There was nothing he could say, in any event.

"How did this get so big if they're people, all of them are huge, even the little ones, little to big like _this _would take forever, just boogering ballooning _lab rats_-" Cort choked off and clapped her hands to her mouth so hard her eyes teared up. She pulled them away far enough to plead with herself before scrambling up and over the Behemoth. "No, nono please, I'm wrong, please, not them too-"

Ripping her knife out of her boot, she started wildly slashing at the corpse's left arm, gouging the flesh away and then hacking into the bones underneath, first the radius, then the ulna. Chips of bone and marrow spraying over her like hot, fatty ice, she found what she was looking for on the second. "It just grew over it. Unless you know how, they don't come off, not even when you die. Charon, it just grew over it. Look! Just like a big 'ol snotty box of cereal with a toy surprise." She dropped her chin to her chest and let out a strangled whoop of laughter.

Charon looked. Buried inside the massive arm and half encased in bone like a tiny metal cyst was a Pip-Boy. Still snorting out giggles, Cort chiseled another piece free, reached out for one of the buttons under the smeared screen, then abruptly pulled her hand back at the last second.

"No. That's it. I'm done, you hear me? Game over, man, game over. I don't want to know." She pushed back even farther, dropping her knife as her hands started to shake. "I don't want to know any of this. I don't want to anything anymore. I don't. I can't stand it. I don't anymore. No. I want to go back. Please, take me _back_."

"As you wis-"

"I DIDN'T MEAN YOU!" Cort shrieked out another jagged laugh, then cracked herself hard across the face, making a sick, meaty smack. The hand she had used flashed up again when he darted forward. "_No_. You stop right there. It's fine, it's quiet, I just need it quiet. It'll be good. Just a little bit, just wait."

Charon did, not knowing what else to do as his mind tangled up in what it meant, running in circles as it searched fruitlessly for another question to ask, one that would work, would bring him to an understanding that wasn't hopeless, even though he knew there wasn't one to be found. The Vaults had all been meant to destroy people, except for Cort's. His last chance at an answer was gone, unless she had one for him.

He held off for close to an hour listening to her mutter under her breath, a quiet mix of not-words and half laughs, until he finally couldn't stand it any more. "Cort-"

As if she had only been waiting for him to speak, she was up and walking for home before he had a chance to get out more than her name.

* * *

**There** was a small outpouring of acknowledgement when she walked into the saloon, varying from cheery waves and greetings called out over the noise from the radio, Gob himself included, to surly grunts and squinting. In response, Cort made a grimace that could have been interpreted as a smile to anyone drunk enough to mistake it for such and clambered into her usual seat, dropping her pack and helmet on the floor. Charon bellied up beside her, doing the same before he fixed his eyes on the far wall in a dead-eyed stare.

Leaning on the bar, Gob raised an eyebrow at the the pair of them, and the abnormally wide gap in between. "Ah. That bad?"

Cort buried her face in her hands. "How could you tell."

"You're still in armour and you're filthy."

"_Thanks_, Gob."

"What happened?"

"I got to second base with our nation's saviour's marble face?" She made a strangled noise that could have been giggling. A muscle on the side of Charon's face twitched in time with it until she stopped.

Long schooled in knowing exactly when to shut his mouth, Gob kept silent and merely hauled out a Nuka and a beer, set the bottles down and waited. Cort didn't raise her head, Charon didn't even appear to be breathing at this point, and Gob decided it was probably more than a good idea to leave off for the moment.

Eventually Three Dog started talking about Agatha, and Cort finally shifted, sliding one elbow far enough out to nudge the beer on the bar closer to Charon before hunkering down again. He didn't pick it up, she didn't move any nearer, but the ramrod straight line of his back relaxed a fraction of an inch and she let up on clenching her face enough to let some blood move back into the parts of it he could see. Improvement was improvement.

They sat there, silent as a pair of lopsided cranky bookends for another half hour, until Nathan came in and took his favoured seat in front of the radio, which he promptly switched over to the Enclave station. Cort's fingers tightened up again as multiple people around the saloon groaned, her voice coming out in a similar state.

"Gob, could you _please_ turn that shit off."

"Sure." He reached out for the knobs, jumping when Nathan slapped a liver-spotted hand in the way of his ragged one.

"I'm listening to that."

Gob scowled and resisted the urge to slap his hand out of the way, genuinely irritated but unwilling to start an altercation. "Jesus Christ, Nathan, it's _my _radio."

Nathan glared back and cranked the volume. "And I've been listening at this time every evening for longer than you've had it." He cranked it higher as another one of President Eden's speeches started winding up.

_'Water is the foundation of life. But here, in the Capital Wasteland, indeed, in the entire country, water is polluted. Irradiated. Deadly. Maybe you've got a makeshift purifier that cleans one glass of dirty water a day, or, or you sip from an ancient faucet in an abandoned subway restroom.'_

Gob swore under his breath and looked around for Nova, who had run off upstairs for something. She had taken up bouncing people from the saloon after seeing how uncomfortable he was at it, particularly when they were running a tab. The opportunity to browbeat Nathan would make her day. Watching her do it would make Gob's whole damn _year_.

_'But that's not really living, is it? You're simply existing, America. Postponing death for a day or two. Well, I'm gonna tell you, right here right now, those days are at an end.'_

"And now he owns the building you've been parking your long-toothed carcass in. Possession is nine tenths of the law." Cort dug her thumbs back into her temples, sounding tired and testy. "Go shove your head up the rear of the brahmin across the crater. It'll sound exactly the same."

_'The Enclave is back America, we've brought clean water with us! For years, Enclave scientists have been hard at work on the most ambitious scientific endeavor the world has ever seen.'_

Almost like a subtle reminder or suggestion that he was still looming on the far side of Cort, Charon shifted minutely on his own seat, turning a bare inch closer. If possible, Nathan sank onto his stool even further, looking like a decrepit molerat trying to entrench itself against an imminent overhead assault. "You'll see, once they erase the mistakes of the past and remake this country. Remake its people. The Enclave will have a place for everyone." He straightened and gave her what he most likely thought was a magnanimous concession. "They can even use someone like you."

_'Project Purity.'_

* * *

**No** one saw Cort move, even those who were looking right at her. She went from sitting on her stool to straddling Nathan on the floor, fingers sunk into the front of his wattled neck and pouring out a string of incoherent sound. Charon wrenched her loose an instant later, both hands locked around her wrists as she lunged and spat. Billy looked down and yelped as Jericho gave an admiring whistle.

"Jesus, she tried to tear his throat out!"

Charon pulled her arms apart until she was nearly spread-eagled. "Cort, _stop it_!" She bent back nearly double to look at him, hateful eyes meeting his through a screen of wild hair, and he felt the bottom drop out of his gut. He let go only long enough to clap a hand over her mouth, his other arm tight around her waist, and then they were falling, Cort kicking against the edge of the bar in an effort to break herself loose. They slammed to the ground next to Nathan, hard, her repeater discharging when they hit and scattering everyone except for Gob and Nova. He clambered over the bar and dropped beside them as she came tearing down the stairs, and Charon thought he had never been so grateful to see anyone.

"Gob, you have to-" He screwed his eyes shut as Cort gave up raking at his arms and tried for his face instead. The other ghoul laced his hands over the back of his neck as Nova made a grab for Cort's.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Med-X, get some fucking Med-X!" He would be damned if he tried choking her out again; killing half the town would still be better than seeing another ring of bruises on her throat.

"You want _what_?"

"_Don't let her speak to me_!" Gob's eyes widened in comprehension, and he bolted back up, slapping his hands down and leaping over the bar in one go, sneakered feet nearly taking Jericho's head off before he ducked. He was back in an instant with a handful of syringes, emptying two into Cort's thigh as soon as he hit the floor. She bucked harder, and Charon yelled again.

"More, you have to use more! Double it!"

"_What_? That'll kill her!"

"She's not-" He swore as Cort suddenly wrenched herself to the side, fishtailing against the floor and slipping her head free. He slapped his hand back over her opening mouth, then bellowed as she sank her teeth in to the bone. "DO IT!"

Gob plunged two more syringes into her side, and finally, ever so slowly Cort stopped moving, muffled shrieks turning into murmurs, her hands and feet trembling in smaller and smaller fits against the floor until they fell still. Charon worked his hand loose from her mouth and clumsily used it to brush the hair back from her face, then wished he hadn't. She looked like a fresh carcass, eyes half-lidded and tongue lolling out. He felt the back of his neck heat up. Everyone was staring at her. "Gob."

Gob wobbled his head up to look at him, an empty syringe still clutched in his hand. "Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." Coming to a bit more, he dropped the syringe and wiped his hand on his pants, looking half sick. "I think. Charon, you're bleeding."

"I know." He glanced down. The slug from the repeater had torn a deep furrow down the inside of his calf before lodging harmlessly into the far wall. "It doesn't matter."

Nathan struggled up, one hand smearing his own blood over the ten perfect half-moons dug into either side of his windpipe. "She tried to kill me! I want her out! Out of this town!"

Jericho looked up from the abandoned drinks he was appropriating from along the bar and snorted. "It's your own fault, wrinkledick. Tease a Vault rat, you're going to get bit."

"She's a lunatic!" Eyes wild, Nathan advanced towards the crumpled pair on the floor.

Nova hurriedly snatched a rag from the bar and pressed it into Charon's bleeding hand, then stood solidly between them and Nathan. "And you _really_ don't know when to shut up, sugar."

"You're in no place to judge what I do with my mouth, missy! The Whore of Babylon kept a tighter trap than you."

Jericho belched. "Whoashit."

Gob finally got up, face livid as he moved to stand next to Nova. "Get the _hell _out of my saloon, Nathan. You're barred for good."

"WHAT?"

Gob tried not to flinch as he was flecked with spittle. "You heard me. Get. Out."

Nathan looked like he had been slapped in the face. "Degenerates. I'm surrounded by treasonous, perverted degenerates! When the good government of this nation finally rises again you'll all burn for it, burn like the dead wood you are." He turned in a slow circle, arms wide to encompass everyone. "YOU'LL BURN AND FUEL THE GLORY OF A NEW REPUBLIC!"

Pointedly shutting everything out as the argument above exploded to include everyone within earshot, Charon gathered Cort up and left the saloon, the shouting crowd breaking like a wave before him, neatly sidestepping just before he reached the door so Simms could enter. Wanting to get a general idea of what was going on and just presented with the why, the sheriff latched on to the only conscious person he could see who wasn't screaming for blood.

"Charon? Is she hurt? What in blazes-"

"No. Talk to Gob."

"I'll need more-"

"Fucking. Talk. To. Gob." Eyes still on Cort, he used his bulk to shoulder past, Simms darting aside before he could be knocked over.

"Right then. I guess I'm talking to Gob." Simms sucked in a breath, nudged the closest person and sent them out to fetch Nathan's wife Manya, then walked right into the midst of the mess and roared. "ALL OF YOU _SHUT IT_!" Everyone did, from either shock or obedience, and he took stock of the only injured party left in the saloon, the shit pouring out of the radio and the syringes scattered over the floor. He ran his fingers over the brim of his hat and swore. _Hell and damnation. She finally went over the high side. _"Nathan, you blasted fool."

* * *

**"I** ordered you to leave me alone, Charon." Cort was tucked under the sink at the back of the house, Dogmeat laying against her. Hair lank against her forehead, her clothes so filthy and sweatstained they were stiff with it, she was every inch a haggard wreck.

He had tied her up just in case when he had gotten her back to the house, hands bound to feet and gagged to prevent her from going on a rampage when she came to, either on her own or vicariously through him. She had woken up with a start, and it almost would have been preferable to have still seen madness in her eyes. Instead, she had moved from complete panic to a look of betrayal to a dead-eyed surrender. All of it had made him feel sick.

"You ordered me not to bother you. Am I?"

She shook her head, sounding apathetic and guilty now instead of cross. "I'm so sorry about your hand, too."

Charon made a loose fist and let it out. He hadn't told her about his leg, and didn't intend to. "It was my own fault."

"No, not yours. You were doing the right thing. I would've-" Cort twitched. "Mine. It's mine, and theirs. They're the ones that did it. Whoever the Enclave was before everything fell apart and died. They're everywhere. Turning people into experiments. Turning me into one."

"Your Vault wasn't like those. It didn't do anything to you."

She gave him a sick little smile. "'We love you, Overseer!' Don't you see? We were bred to be obedient, and conditioned to keep things going. Reared like little drones. I have to tell myself that Dad didn't know. I don't want to know. I don't. He left me blind and I want to stay that way."

_But they're not going crazy_. Charon bit back the words and tried focusing on a more immediate need. "Cort, you haven't moved in two days." _Or fucking eaten, drank, or slept_. He tentatively reached out, intending to push a greasy clot of hair away from her eyes. Cort pulled back before he could. She hadn't let him touch her either since the ropes had come off.

"What would be the point? Tell me, what's the point of doing _anything_? Why the hell am I even here?"

Charon didn't reply immediately, wondering just what kind of answer it was she wanted him to give, what one would explain everything for her. The ghoul had a surprisingly romantic streak, one that could have lent itself to the quandary in brilliant and creative thought, but it was walled off inside a deeply pragmatic nature that wasn't inclined to indulge in existential questions. He decided to keep things as literal as possible, since every other answer he was still capable of giving summed up to him not knowing a thing. "You're here because I carried you."

"Isn't that the truth." Cort laughed with no real humour, shut her eyes and leaned against the wall, face pinched and looking too old. "Nevermind me. I'm just so tired. I need to sleep. Just let me sleep."

"No, Cort. You need to eat first. It's been-" He stopped as her eyes suddenly snapped back open and met full on with his for the first time since the saloon, the whites so bloodshot they were a sickly pink around the grey.

"I am not. Fucking. Hungry."

Charon bit off the nasty retort that he wanted to snap out at her and backed off. "Alright. I'll get you something to drink, then. I'll get a Nuka from Gob's."

"Sure. Go." Cort dropped her head back down. "It's all the same to me."


	57. She's Broken Thoughts I Can't Repair

_Another late update, whooo! For anyone reading this chapter, this is the third(I think, Mopps is tiiired) update in as many days, so make sure you didn't miss anything!_

* * *

**Charon** jumped up and headed out of the house for one of the over-sweet sodas, even though the refrigerator was full of them. He spent the time in between her and the saloon scrambling to come up with some other plan, a next step he could take with the absence he had just excused for himself. Yelling at her hadn't worked like he had expected it to, as it always did; instead she had yelled back, and then ordered him away. Conciliatory hadn't worked, even just _giving a shit_ hadn't worked. He thought about going for Church or even the damned Brown woman, and dismissed both, not believing they could do anything except raise her anger at him again. Even though she wore nearly every aspect of her life on her sleeve, Cort was intensely private about her health. The only one he would have no problems bringing near her would be Barrows, and that wasn't an option this time, just like it hadn't been before.

He gave an exasperated snort, irritation breaking through the worry. _This_ time she hadn't been overwhelmed into some inner oblivion; she had simply given up. Stopped trying. The only thing she seemed determined to do was to block any attempt he made at pulling her out of it. This wallowing self-defeat was maddening.

Swallowing his pride, he reluctantly decided to try for a new perspective from the only other avenue he thought might not drive Cort to retaliation. He was headed towards them anyway, and there really wasn't anything for him to lose at this point. They had already seen what he had tried so hard to hide.

Charon stopped as the door to the saloon whanged open, pausing long enough to watch as Nova dragged a drunken, cursing Wastelander out in a headlock and off down the ramp away from him, her companionably chirpy voice rather at odds with the way she was wrenching at one of his ears.

"Next time you decide to get lippy, I just might keep them, sugar. Slice them off like some fatty bacon. So how about you go cool off for another week, hmm? Before I have to get real nasty."

Coming into the saloon, all eyes tracked onto him before quickly darting away, even those of the Atomites. That particular group was swathed around the bar, occupying all of Gob's attention. For once, he didn't look uncomfortable with it. Charon couldn't blame him. He currently didn't want to deal with himself or the shit he brought with him either. That avenue blocked off, the big ghoul switched to his second choice, which was currently passing him on her way to her customary alcove with a mild smile on her face.

"Nova."

She stopped and turned around, one arm akimbo. "Charon."

"I need to ask you. About Cort."

Watching his shoulders twitch, Nova quirked one coppery eyebrow and waited, letting him take his time.

"She's-" Charon swallowed back what he was going to say. He didn't want to, and after what had happened, he supposed he didn't really have to. She had been laid out bare for everyone. He ground out his next words through his teeth, coming as close as he could to directly asking for help. "I need to know why. So I can fix it."

By nature and nurture a creature of physical observation and subtlety, Nova didn't need any elaboration to understand. "You can't. She's a Vault dweller." She said it slowly, expecting it explain everything for him. "Sugar, you had to know this was coming. It was only a matter of time." Anyone who knew Cort had been expecting it, either having personally experienced one of her spurts of craziness, like the incidents over Moriarty, or just because they had spotted the Pip-Boy and known what it meant. All things considered, they had probably been lucky it had taken so long. Definitely very lucky that she hadn't gone to shit even worse than she had.

Looking at his face, watching him struggle against the inevitable, she wished Cort had lasted just a little bit longer. Since she hadn't, she settled for hoping that Charon's denial was as short-lived as possible. Discovering your lover was a hopeless nutcase couldn't be an easy thing to accept, especially with the way things had fallen out, but living a lie was so much worse. She was certainly one to know.

Charon let his breath out slowly, trying to keep his temper. "You don't understand. She wasn't born there, and the Vault she lived in was different. _She_ should be different." Everything they had encountered in the other Vaults could have explained everything; her increasingly uncontrollable rages, the unending nightmares, the times she would suddenly have a look of abrupt confusion on her face, as if she had somehow misplaced herself for a moment. The only thing 101 had seemingly been geared towards was to make the dwellers biddable to authority. All of the others had seemingly been designed to drive the inhabitants crazy, all of them, through drugs or experimentation or torture. The mental conditioning Cort had been subjected to was almost gentle in comparison.

Charon thought that if it had genuinely had a chance of harming her, James would have been smart enough to realize the danger and removed her from it. Even if he hadn't known the man well, it had been well enough to know that. He was also positive there was no way her forced exodus could have caused this. That had probably been one of the easiest fights of her life.

Nova reached out, almost but not quite touching his arm. "I don't think it matters where her Momma had her. You know as well as I do how prone they are to going off the deep end. Hell, it practically _defines_ them. How's she doing now, anyway? How are you?"

Charon snapped slightly at the show of concern for him, finding it entirely misplaced. "_I_ don't fucking matter. She isn't doing anything. That's the problem. She won't eat, she won't sleep, I can't even get her to fucking move."

Nova frowned, suddenly looking thoughtful. "Have you tried-"

Her eyes widened and Charon whipped around in time to catch the beer bottle that had been aimed at her smack in the forehead. The drunk she had thrown out earlier, the same damned drunk who had tried to nail him a month before, had managed to creep back in while she had been distracted, and while his aim was off, his throwing arm wasn't nearly as impaired. Luckily for the ghoul, neither was his decision making. He had chosen the unloaded ammunition this time.

If it had been full, impacted on a different angle or struck someone who didn't have a head as hard as a rock, it might have been fatal. As it was, the bottle exploded and Charon dropped like he had been shot, the patrons nearest to him grabbing ahold of their drinks as the impact juddered them down the bar. The drunk dropped from being actually shot, landing almost in tandem with his unintended target.

"Anyone else want to throw shit around? No? Good. Once this is sorted, we'll have happy hour a bit early, how's that." Jaw clenched and mouth set in a hard line as everyone not laid out on the floor gave a reserved cheer, Gob placed the 10mm back behind the bar and hurried over. Nova was kneeling over Charon, alternately slapping at his cheeks and picking broken glass off of him. "Sweet Jesus. That could've killed you. Did it...Nova, please tell me _he's_ not dead."

"He's not dead, sugar." Nova blinked and felt her face pink up in a rare blush as a colourful stream of slurred expletives poured out of the big man, the variety and downright crudeness surprising even her. There was a gaping wound over half of his forehead, one chalky eye obscured by a puddle of blood. Nova grimaced and plucked a chunk of glass out of it, hoping there wasn't more she couldn't see. "Although he probably wishes he was."

Gob straightened up. "We'll have to go for Cort. I'll grab some glowing water for you and then get over."

Nova grabbed his pant leg, a sly, calculating look on her face. "No, get him up and take him there instead."

"Get him up? I'd be lucky if I can lift one of his _legs_. Should we even try to move him?"

"Better for Cort if we do. You want her having a fit in here or at home?"

"Crap. Ah, _crap_. I forgot." Gob rubbed a hand over his face and turned to the bar. "Billy? You think you could manage half?"

"As long as you can keep him from keeling over and crushing me like a bug, sure."

Both men got their hands under a shoulder and pulled, Gob trying to talk the other ghoul into helping. "Charon, come on, upsy daisy."

"Go...to hell. Go...to...fuck yourselves."

"Oh, this'll be a fun stroll. Come on Charon, Cort needs you." All three of them nearly went over backwards as he suddenly lurched upwards with a pained bellow, Gob cursing and pulling and Billy swearing and pushing to keep him from going ass over kettle.

Nova watched the pair of them precariously move the stumbling hulk around the drunk's cooling body and out of the door, alternately hauling and herding to get him going in the right direction, a hopeful look on her face. "Right. A free drink for the two fellas that want to take out the trash." The two closest patrons hopped to immediately as the door bashed open again, and Nova smiled, letting out her next words in a drawl. "Why hello, Lucas. I believe we saved you a headache. Why don't you sit for a spell and I'll tell you how."

Simms stripped his hat off and sighed. "Why don't I just take a room here while I'm at it."

* * *

**Cort** snapped her head around as a loud series of bangs hit the front door, setting her heartrate off like a trip-hammer before she took a firm grip on her nerves. Head throbbing from fatigue and dehydration but still clear enough to figure that someone bent on mayhem or murder probably wouldn't knock first, she found it mercifully easy. "Go away." She shut her eyes again and tried to crawl back into the bleak apathy she had built around herself.

"Gob with Charon. Open up Cort, Billy and I've got our hands full. He's hurt."

Cort was up and scurrying to the door before Gob had gotten to her name. She whipped it open and gaped. Gob and Billy Creel were straining to support Charon, who was bleeding like a stuck pig from a laceration running over his forehead, and seemed to be unable to determine which side of his feet should stay on the ground. Snapping her mouth shut, she shoved aside her issues for the moment and ran for her medical supplies, yelling over her shoulder." Dump him on the couch. What the hell happened, Gob? He was just going to get me a Nuka, for Chrissakes."

"Someone we tossed came back and did some tossing at Nova, whipped a bottle at her. Hit him by mistake." Cort pounded back down the stairs with her arms full, face positively savage.

"Are they dead, Gob?"

Looking at the state of her, Gob was extremely thankful he could respond to the affirmative. "As a doornail."

"Good. Thank you kindly." She dumped everything she had brought down and set to work, not acknowledging or noticing when both of the other men left, Gob shutting the door as lightly as possible behind them. Charon had slumped down, his head resting on the back of the couch. Cort frowned.

"Oh no. None of that, now." She reached out and smacked his face lightly. "Charon, wake the hell up."

Charon groaned and tried to move his head out of range. "No. Tired."

"_Charon_. Up." His one visible eye fluttered open, and he started struggling against the couch.

"C-Cort. Up."

"No, not that kind of up, you ninny. You can't sleep right now, you have to stay awake for me." Cort pressed the rag to his forehead before she started working on clearing his muddled eye. "When you went to get me something to drink I didn't think you meant to carry it in your Goddamned skull. Why didn't Gob at least give you some glowing water first, I know he keeps it around now."

"It wasn't...my idea. Doesn't matter. You'll fix me. You always fix me. I wish I could fix you. M'fuckin' useless."

Cort had to shut her eyes for a moment before she went back to wiping the blood from his. "No. You're perfect." _And you, Cort, you are one sad sack of shit._

Charon smiled. "Cort. My beautiful Cort." He fumbled, trying to run his hand up her side, dropping it away before he could touch her as she flinched, happiness turning to sorrow. "Let you down. Always letting you down."

"No, you aren't. You aren't useless, either." Cort sighed, turning it into a hiss as she lifted the rag on his forehead off, taking enough of the clotted blood with it to reveal a small streak of exposed skull, startlingly white against his flesh. "Shit. _Shit_. They _really_ brained you." Soaking a fresh pad in glowing water, she gently patted it over the gash until it disappeared, then felt over his face one last time for anything else she might have missed. "I don't get it. How did you let this happen?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't see. Didn't notice behind. Sloppy again." Charon gave her a contented, trusting look. "You would have, you caught it for me last time."

"It was _that_ asshole? Jesus fucking _baldheaded_-" She stopped as he nuzzled his face into her palm. It broke something in her to see it. Cort made a strangled sound and crawled into his lap, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. "I'm sorry. I never said it but I'm so happy you're not dead. I didn't want to think it was real. That car hit you and then...and then...I'm sorry I pushed you away but I was so mad and then every time I tried to tell you I could feel it squeezing against my _legs_-" She pressed her face into his neck and shuddered. 'It's there it's there it's me it's there it's in my head and if you leave me-"

"Stop it. I _can't_ leave, remember? Standing orders. No 'ditching' you." Charon straightened and reached up to rub at her back, still half-addled but feeling a rising amount of hope. Hugs were good, after all. "Are you there..._fuck_. Are you better now?"

Cort tried to decide if she could keep up appearances as he started coming around. At the very least, she could have a bath. _It's just so hard_. "No, Charon. I'm not. But I'll try harder to be there next time." _That's all I can do._

* * *

**Unable **if not unwilling to give up because of him, Cort responded the way all secretive animals did when they were wounded; she hid it as best she could. If Charon could tell that she wasn't getting any better, he at least didn't notice that she was getting worse every day.

It was easier than she had expected, like putting on a mask made especially for her. Cort almost found a sick sort of enjoyment in playing the role of her earlier self. It gave an ordered structure for who she was now to fall apart inside of; as long as she kept the thin shell intact around it, the rest didn't matter. She made it thicker every day, polishing the surface until it shone like glass, sending back a perfect reflection of what she wanted people to see.

She played with Dogmeat and fixed pipes for Walter; sat at the bar with endless sodas and helped Gob and Nova close down nearly every night. She noodled over things with Moira and shot errant raiders with Stockholm, making sure to nod in all the right places to both of them. She lay down with Charon whenever he wanted to, and lied to everyone else's face whenever they asked if she would be fine.

The days slipped by, until they turned into weeks, until one of the things she had ignored to keep everything smooth, everything perfect and slick, showed up and shattered it all.

* * *

**Like** so many other pivotal events throughout history(an unstoppable army returning home from every corner of the empire to squabble because their warlord had died, a disreputable scapegrace deciding to trade purses for parcels, a Brotherhood Elder taking note of the real things of worth left over from the last stupendously cataclysmic firestorm, another war to end all wars), what started Cort's final descent into the oblivion that would swallow her and eventually propel her into changing the face of the Capital Wasteland, was a decision that was so tiny, so insignifigant, it was barely more than a puff of instinctive impulse and coldhearted indifferent circumstance.

She had woken up because her leg was asleep, it was deep in the middle of a moonless night, and she had simply wanted to go for a pee.

Quietly untangling herself from Charon, she had fished her pants out of the jumbled pile beside the bed once the tingling in her calf had stopped and padded barefoot down the stairs, the rest of her already clad in one of the ghoul's shirts. She had taken to wearing the oversized garments on a semi-regular basis, finding that they made for a comfortable nightshirt, snitching them from the neatly folded pile he kept on the desk(which was _never _neat after she had removed or replaced one, and he would have issued a rare sincere complaint about it if he hadn't noticed that for hours after putting on the shirt she had gone to bed in, all he could smell was her musky, sleepy scent).

Cort sleepily strapped on her pistol and repeater at the door, then carefully slipped out, Dogmeat trailing behind. She stopped for a moment, leaning back against her house and staring up at the sky, stars shining in a broad swath above her and the rest of the world so dark that the Milky Way looked like a froth of light. She let herself drift until letting go to rise into them felt like the best idea in the world but before she remembered that getting up to them was impossible, and continued on down to the washrooms.

Leaning against the sink after she had finished, she looked down at Dogmeat and grimaced. "I really wish you wouldn't drink out of these ones. These are not the toilets we drink out of. These are especially not the toilets we drink out of before trying to lick my face." She ran her hand under the sink and then scrubbed her cheek until she was satisfied, then checked over herself. "Hair clean, face clean, me clean. Can't be bugfuck if I'm clean, no. Cleanliness is next to godliness is next to normalcy is a cloud we swath and float upon the souls-" Cort cut herself off and rapped on the mirror gently in a little repetitive pattern, staring at herself. "No no, normal. We're all normal in here." She turned her head down again. "Aren't we?"

Dogmeat whuffed in agreement, and she nodded.

"Good. Let's go back to bed."

Cort opened the door, then stopped as something that felt like the biggest damn Bloatfly in the world stung her. "Ouch! What the...Dogmeat..." She grabbed the jamb as her head started swimming and pawed at her chest, pulling away something. "Dog...what? Someone...usin' me as a fucking _dartboard_...why won't you answer?" Her hands joined her head in the water it was running out in, and then her legs, and she slipped down into it. Cort blinked slowly, her mouth moving against the decking in a slow drawl. "Oh. Tha's why." Dogmeat was beside her, his chest sodden and the floor beneath him reflecting back a lake of starlight.

Cort looked up from her bleeding dog as someone cleared their throat, wanting to ask if the water coming out of him was the same that was drowning her. All she could see was a hat and a suit, one holding a silenced pistol that leaned down to pluck her own from her hip.

"Hello, my dark little songbird. It's time to fly." There was a hollow noise at the side of her head, and then nothing.

* * *

**If **not for one simple thing, Dogmeat would have died, she would have disappeared without a trace, and Charon would have spent the rest of his sentient life searching the Wasteland for a lost love he would never find but would unknowingly walk over three times in the following century, a broken body buried in an abnormally deep grave somewhere to the west of Tenpenny Tower, one dusty, mummified hand still reaching up in abject despair and fury. This would have been the end, if not for his own primitive response to her actions.

His warmer mate had left the bed, and Charon had gotten cold.

Noticing the absence of the comfortable heat he was accustomed to soaking in while sleeping, Charon woke up barely an hour after Cort had been shanghaied, one large hand sleepily questing for the expected small body so he could pull it back against him and eliminate the aggravating chill. It wasn't there. "Cort?" Instantly alert but not keyed up as of yet, he propped himself up and rolled over to peer down beside the bed, grunting when he saw what he had expected; the lack of pants and the presence of boots. Her being gone wasn't necessarily alarming, seeing as she was prone to nocturnal forays to the bathroom whenever they were back in Megaton(he had asked her after the eigth trip in one night if something was physically wrong, and she had explained that she merely derived bliss from the ability to go whenever she wanted without checking to see if something was going to try and kill her while she 'hung her fanny out and piddled').

Cort rarely wore her boots when she was settled in somewhere, and for whatever bizarre reason, never got up to anything insane while they were off either, the incident on the flight deck at Rivet City and the night of Moriarty's death having been the only exceptions. Leaving them behind was generally a sign that she was feeling upbeat, having a good spell, and it encouraged him. She was still unstable, and he wasn't sure at this point if she would ever go back to being the person she had been when he had met her, but she was at least becoming more grounded.

He might have waited further after seeing that she was wandering around barefoot, shooting any chance of finding her to hell if not for one subtle, disturbing detail; the rest of the bed was even colder than he was. Out of it and halfway down the stairs before he had coherently even thought of moving, he yelled down into the main room. "_Cort_?" He held his breath, denuded but still sharp ears searching for any quiet, familiar sound of her. If the bed was cold, she had been gone for far longer than was required, and it was too early for her to have been waylaid by anything normal. A quiet thump sounded out from somewhere, and he tried again. "Cort?"

Charon relaxed slightly as a soft rapping started up at the door. He snorted, descending the rest of the stairs with no small amount of relief and a few scathing remarks sitting hot on the back of his tongue._ Locked herself out. "_Cort, you really need to wake the fuck up before you decide to leave the hou-"

Charon opened the door.


	58. Tonight I'm Tangled

_Slightly shorter chaper, but still a chapter! Woooo holy Lord. Thanks so much for the notes and reviews, folks! I've written a couple fills with Charlie that you might enjoy; one is set before she becomes 'the' Courier, and another is set much later in the game. You can find them in my story list. I don't mean to drag this story out, but knowing where I'm going, writing Cort and Charon into that hell is harder than I thought__._

* * *

**Drag**-_slump_. A little farther.

He didn't warn her. He didn't warn her because one of them smelled like a house here, and they're supposed to belong, but that's the one that shot him.

Drag-_slump._ A little bit more.

He has to make it. He couldn't attack with the two slugs in his chest, not with his world on the ground and four men standing over. The bastards. The black-armoured _gnats_.

Drag_-slump-slip-slip! _

Tumbling down from the ramps, and it hurts, oh it _hurts_ but it's better this way. He's gone faster, fallen just outside the house of the one who reeks of booze and smoke.

Drag-_slump_. Almost there.

One, he could have done. Two, if he gave up everything left in him. But not three. Not four. Oh not four, and his world is gone, his first, and he needs to get to the big one, before he can't get anywhere.

Drag-_slump_.

Maybe the big one will carry him so he can die at her feet. That would be good, that would be best, that would be what has to be, but he can smell himself running out behind, away, back. He's running out.

Drag.

_Slump_.

Just a little farther.

* * *

**He** was doing it. He was finally doing it. Now if he could just _accept_ that he was doing it.

Gob tightened his hands on Nova's hips, just a bit, rubbing his thumbs over the faded denim of her skirt. "Ah. You're sure this is okay."

"Well, it would be better if you could at least look me in the face, honey."

Gob jerked his eyes up, his hands following suit in reflex and trying to dive into his pockets. Right. That was something her customers had never done, looked her in the face. They always had eyes for other parts of her, and as much as Gob wanted those parts, the last thing he wanted to do was be comparable to that. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorr-!" He squeaked as she planted her own hands over his pockets to block them off, her fingers splayed down over the tops of his thighs.

Nova tried to hold in a grin. "Shh, Gob. You're skipping like a record. Just take your time."

"Time. Right." As if he hadn't waffled enough getting here. He had tried to make it easier, he really had. Gob shut his eyes for a moment and tried to go over what Charon had told him weeks ago.

* * *

**Charon** looked up as Gob leaned over the bar, looked down at the other man's hands fiddling the rag clutched in one hand over the glass in the other, and waited. Asking what roach had crawled up his ass this time was the most attractive option, but he had been making an effort to be nicer to the bartender, seeing as it made Cort happy. It was also the reason why he was taking the initiative to visit on his own more often. That, and it kept him from going stir-crazy in the house whenever she went calling on the batshit Brown woman to fiddle over the book they were writing.

Quite surprisingly, he found the longer he tried, the easier it turned out to be, and it helped that Gob didn't look at him with either adoration, disgust or wall-eyed terror, the last having stopped almost immediately after their return. Once he had gotten all of his marbles back in the bag, Gob had correctly deduced that Cort's affection had rendered him completely untouchable. Knowing this, and the fact that Charon was also one of the only people he himself could sit down with and not feel immediately like a fetish object or pariah, meant he was relatively calm doing it. It had also turned him into a cheeky little fuck, in Charon's opinion.

Deciding he would have to do something to throw the bartender out of his repetitive tic at any rate, Charon dug some caps out of his pocket(and fuck him sideways, but that _still _felt weird, owning money he had earned for Cort). Gob immediately exchanged them for a beer, then leaned over again, his face intent.

"I need to ask you something."

Charon said nothing, merely raised an eyebrow and waited.

"What did you do to get Cort to...reciprocate?"

The eyebrow ticced up another fraction.

"You know, when you started going after her."

Charon parsed this for a moment, hung up on the literal before he realized Gob wasn't referring to his following her wherever she went. "Oh. I didn't do anything. She pursued me." It made perfect and obvious sense; hers was the aggressive position, she made the decisions. He replied in a slow level tone that was either condescending or facetious. "That's how it's supposed to work, Gob."

"I can't tell if you're being serious or just screwing me around."

He deadpanned back. "I was not aware either of those were exclusive states."

Gob let it go. "What do you do when people say crap to her about it."

Charon squinted into his half-empty beer bottle, idly contemplating the diminishing contents while deciding where the best point to break the base would be if he needed to turn it into a weapon. "Occasionally insult the fuckers back."

"That's it?"

"Why would I do anything else? She's fully capable of handling her own affairs."

"You don't ah. Defend her honour, or something?"

"Why? She would neither want nor need my interference. I'm not going to insult her by implying otherwise." If anything, it was the opposite; he had to step in when it looked like she was going to beat the snot out of someone who would provide more trouble for her as a corpse. "All I need to do is shoot where she points me and blow shit up."

"It can't be that easy. The things people say, they have to make her feel-"

"Gob, the only person who can dishonour someone is themselves, and I think Nova is far past the point of overtly giving a fuck about what people do or do not think of her. I suggest you do the same. Otherwise you'll end up pissing her right the hell off." He stood up and drained the bottle, then considered it and Cort's first attempt at sex with him one more time before setting it down and leaving. "If she has problems, tell her to try getting drunk first. Just...don't let her do it where she can jump _off _of anything."

"...Crap."

* * *

**It** had taken forever to work up the nerve after that, enough that he had finally broken down and tried the harebrained suggestion, but only after finding a bottle of wine buried deep in the back of the storeroom. It had a cork instead of a screwcap, something Nova had said was preferable, and with interest, one of the few sparks of interest she had shown in anything during the last hellish year. Gob had hoarded the information away like a treasured little tidbit.

"Listen, Nova, I know you like this, I found it in the back, and I know you like it, and if-if you thought it would help you maybe, I don't know, relax-" Gob looked up and the words died in his throat. Nova's expression was totally blank, and he belatedly realized just how awful everything he was saying sounded. _Great. Ask the recovering addict who jetted up to get through johns all day if she wants to get drunk so she can stand to get near you. Just perfect, Gobtholemew. You're a prize, all around._ Shoulders slumped, he started turning away.

"I think that would be the perfect thing to get me in the mood."

Gob stopped, elated before it hit him that she _did_ want to get drunk before going near him. He tried not to sound too crestfallen as he offered up the bottle, wondering if he could make an excuse to slip out and find a hole to bury himself in. "Oh. Ah. Here."

"But only if you share it with me."

Gob met her eyes and tentatively matched her smile.

* * *

**So** now he was here, with his hands back on her hips and sweet Jesus, she still had her own on him, and they were _sliding_ places, and pulling him back into her little alcove where he had watched her day after day, and he wondered if the wine would taste any different in her mouth than in his, and, and _freckles_, and, almost _there_-

* * *

**There** wasn't time for everything he wanted to do in the next ten seconds. Charon settled for trying to do all of it at once.

The soft rapping at the door, the noise he had thought was Cort not trying to wake anyone, had turned out to be Dogmeat's tail brushing against the hollow metal, sodden with clotting blood. He took one look at the dog and darted back inside, moving out again just as quick when the expected ambush didn't come. He bellowed out her name, then dropped to his knees when she didn't appear.

"Where is she. Show me." Dogmeat jerked his head up and Charon caught it before it could drop back to the decking. "_Show me_!" Dogmeat whined and licked at his wrists, trying to scrabble his paws underneath his body. "Fuck. _Fuck_!"

Charon let him go and stepped over him, following the trail of blood to where it ended at the women's washroom, searching the building inside and out and raking over every possibility he could think of for not finding her, for not finding even any sign of her. That done, he narrowed his thoughts down to the bare points of the matter to decide on his next course of action, not for once considering that anyone in the town could have gotten the drop on her; none of them were even close to being a match to her or the dog. If she wasn't here, she was somewhere else, probably after whoever had shot the mutt, and if she was somewhere else, the quickest way to find her _was_ the mutt. Which, he belatedly realized, was why he was feeling so panicked in the first place. With the state he was in, Cort would postpone revenge if she couldn't take it immediately, would never leave the-

Charon blanched. _Fuck. The mutt_. He pelted back to the house. Dogmeat was still in the doorway, and his tail started spasming against the decking as soon as he saw him.

Picking him up, Charon ran into the house and up the stairs, setting him down next to Cort's infirmary, spending only a few seconds there fumbling with a pair of hemostats before he was hauling ass back down and out of the house, one large hand pressing a wad of rags against Dogmeat's ruined chest. The slugs were in too deep for him to reach, and from the look of his muzzle, at least one of them had fouled up a lung. Someone else would have to cut them out.

Charon sprinted to Church's clinic and rammed on the door, using his whole forearm to pound against it and only stopping when a muffled, surly voice called out.

"Someone better be next door to dead."

"There is." Charon tried shouldering into the clinic as Church opened the door. "I need you to patch him up. I don't know anything about dogs."

Church slammed the door back into him. "And I do? I'm a doctor, not a vet."

"It's a _fucking _step up from what I am, so patch him the fuck up!" He struggled to stay calm enough to get his point across. Dogmeat searching for her would be a definite solution, a straight line. If he looked on his own, if he searched it meant he had _lost_-

_Too many possibilities. Too much thinking, too much, too much._ A rising, amorphous fear started working up from his gut to the back of his neck, and Charon pushed harder.

The doctor had his own point, and it was at the end of a sawed-off. Unable to do anything else with his arms full, Charon snapped himself back as both barrels jammed through the crack in the door and aimed for his face, Church snarling behind it.

"I've sunk low in my life, but I've never sunk low enough to work on a damned animal. Now get the _hell_ out of here before I turn you into my next patient."

The gun retreated, the door slammed and Simms called down from overhead before he could contemplate anything else. "Charon, what in the hell is going on?"

"Cort's missing, the mutt can find her, and this fucking bastard won't fix the mutt." Terse explanation delivered, he pulled back his leg to break down the door. He would be _damned_ if he couldn't deal with one man, armed or not.

"_Charon_!" The ghoul stopped and snapped his head up. Simms leaned forward to get a better look and found an unholy horror looking right back. "Right. Church can't do it, he never has. Take him up to Moira, she does all the doctoring on animals when it's needed. I'll get people up and start looking. Do I have to worry about anyone getting hurt when they find her?"

Once, just for the briefest of seconds, Charon wished they had never left the Citadel before he shoved the frivolous thought away. There wasn't any time for anything else. "No. You have to worry about _me_ if you don't."

He didn't bother with the formalities when he got to Craterside Supply. One, two solid kicks against the lock and latch and the door was hanging in off its hinges. He walked in, opened his mouth to yell for Moira, then instantly hit the dirt as an ashtray, a burnt book and a teddy bear whipped towards him in a blinding flurry, the last item exploding in a ball of furry limbs and stuffing against the lintel behind him.

Moira looked over the end of her Rock-it Launcher from the far side of the room. Charon looked back with a mix of barely contained anger and not at all contained incredulity as tiny wisps of stuffing and fur settled around and on him. "You fucking _done_?"

"Um? Yep!" Moira jittered slightly and licked at her lips as he stood up and walked over, holding the heavy weapon up like a barrier. "You want to tell me why the good gracious you're in here before I start again with something pointy?"

"I need you to patch him up. Now." He paused, bit the inside of his cheek hard. "_Please_."

"What? Who? Why?"

"_Because my fucking contract's gone_!" Moira did nothing but stare at him, and he tried again, fighting to get the normal-sounding explanation out. "Cort. _Cort's_ gone. Missing. I need the dog to find Cort." _I need her in control. There's no direction without control. I need...I need...she finds me, _she_ finds_ me_, I never find, lost, _can't_ find-_ Flooded with confusion and still more of the aching, gut-rotting panic that had been growing in him since finding Dogmeat at the door, Charon viciously snapped his head back and forth to clear it and then held his arms out. Moira flashed hers out in reflex, dropping her Launcher to catch the dog as he let go. "All of _you _need me to find Cort."

* * *

**Moira** dithered, arms full of bleeding dog and for once completely speechless. There was no question about wanting to help find her little helpful friend, but patching up animals around here usually meant cutting extra limbs or lumps off of things and then answering questions about whether or not the meat she had just made was safe to eat. If something you owned was shot up bad, the whole thing was just an unexpected meal. Looking at the ghoul, Moira considered that telling him to give up and make a late supper was not going to fly. There was nothing else to do but take a whack at it and hope for the best.

"Okay, sure yes but you need to go if I'm going to work, right get out! Go!" He kept staring, and Moira shrieked. "_GETTOUT_!"

The shock ran off his face in a wash of some inscrutable flood of emotion. Moira clutched the dog tighter. "Fine. Fix him up. Bring him to Gob's." Charon turned, wrenching the door back into its jamb as he left.

Moira waited just long enough to be sure he was genuinely gone and then spun on her heel, running for the back of her store. She darted a look over her shoulder once again, then fumbled one hand out and pulled at the edge of one of the lockers against the wall. It swung open, revealing a tiny, precisely hewn tunnel leading back into the rock of the crater. She dropped to her knees and scrambled in, Dogmeat's head pressed against her neck. "Aren't you a lucky pup! Not every pup gets to come back to my secret lab! At least not ones who come on out again!" She thought of Charon and let out a nervous little giggle. "You'll do that, won't you? Sure! Walk out all snazzy, you betcha!"

She came out into a a long narrow room, just as precisely carved as the tunnel and strewn with all manner of salvaged objects, everything from mundane piles of housing bricks to jumbled equipment so bizarre in shape and unknowable in function it looked positively arcane. The length of one wall was nothing but shelving, jars of all sizes filled with fluids and body parts, the re-purposed Christmas lights she had strung behind them filling every one of them with an eldritch glow. Everywhere there were corpses, dogs and molerats and Mirelurks; even a Glowing One set up almost chummily against the far end, his innards slowly draining through tubes into a little collection of jars set up like tiny children waiting for a story at his feet.

Moira skittered over to her workbench, swept the half-dissected dog off of it and replaced it with the one in her arms. "What first, oh what first!" She looked at her hands. Tapped her tacky fingers together. "Blood! Lost it, need it! Bloodblood_blood_!"

She tore down the length of the room in a tizzy, snatching up tools and bottles and assorted packs of collected blood, anything she thought she would need before she rebounded off the far wall and ran back to Dogmeat with a manic grin on her face.

"Okay, okay! We can do this! We're not going to die! Let's get you...honeybear? Sweetiepie?" Moira stood there for a second, two, watching Dogmeat's chest to confirm that it wasn't moving before she made a yipping noise and dove for a pile of old industrial batteries scattered across the floor.

* * *

**The **door to the saloon crashed in hard, and both Gob and Nova yelped. Gob was halfway behind the bar for his pistol before he clued in on just who had assaulted the front half of his bar, and he stopped, caught between pent-up frustration and incredulity. Weeks of working up to this and he had been a bare inch away from-_from_...oh, this was just the living _end_. He threw his arms up and yelled at the lunk in the doorway. "_NOW_? OF ALL TIMES YOU HAVE TO BARGE IN N-"

He trailed off as the other particulars about the man in front of him sank in. Charon was soaked in blood, his face a mask of open panic as his eyes darted around the room. "Oh holy _shit_. What happened."

The big ghoul locked eyes with him, his throat working for what seemed like forever before he was finally able to wrench the words out of himself.

"I don't _know_."


	59. Somebody Please, Send Her to Me

_ Thanks much for the lovely reviews and reading! For anyone interested who's not following me on Author Alert, I've posted a few meme fills using Charlie's story in the interim while I slugged away at this chapter. You can find them in my list. :) _

* * *

**Simms **found Charon sitting on his regular stool and looking at the empty seat next to it like he was expecting the void there to injure him. He was starting towards the ghoul when a hand reached out and gently gripped his shoulder. Gob had been standing just inside the door. Simms half-turned and raised his eyebrows in surprise and question. "Yes, Gob?"

Gob jerked his hand back as if he had been burnt by the contact and jammed it into a pocket. "Sorry. Sorry." His rasping voice was barely audible. "Did you find her?"

"Not yet, but she can't be far. Stockholm says she didn't head out of town, so it's only a matter of time before she pops up." He frowned as Gob flicked his eyes over to Charon and let them hang there for a long moment before moving back to his. He hadn't seen the bartender this nervy since before Moriarty had ended up in a pulp.

"You want to be very, very careful until you do. I've never seen him like this. He's all..." Gob groped around for his next word. "Upset."

"Of course he's upset. Anyone would be under the circumstances."

Gob grunted and shook his head. "You don't understand. I don't mean worried upset. I mean _upset_ upset. Turned over. In a jumble. If it was his last employ..." He clamped his mouth shut for a second. "He would just wait or go looking if the person he was with before went missing. This time it's different, because he...Nova and I have been talking to him, and I don't think he can think straight. It's like he can't make sense of himself."

"Gob, right now you're the one not making a lick of sense."

"Okay, how's this." Gob grimaced, a sick, fidgety little smile. "If anyone else had brought him into town I would've left. Just said screw it to that Irish sonofabitch and taken my chances instead of staying put with Charon around, because _he_ would scare me _more_. More than anything else, ever."

"Who brought him in? What would that matter?" Simms turned the rest of the way towards him. "What aren't you telling me, Gob?"

His raspy voice still sounded uneasy, but now there was a truculent streak of iron buried in it, one Simms thought he didn't have a chance of bending. "What I don't have any right to, so don't ask me again. Just...be careful. Like I said."

Simms gave him one last lingering stare before he walked across the room, standing where he would be in Charon's line of sight.

"Alright. She definitely didn't leave with anyone, so that's one thing checked off. Billy and Jericho are looking around, both of them know every little cubbyhole someone could get into." Simms refrained from mentioning that they were also the two in town who stood the best chance of Cort not trying to take them out, and being able to take her down if they needed to. " You ready to search?"

Charon kept staring at the empty seat. "I don't need to search. I just need the mutt."

"Well, how about we cover all the bases anyway." Simms hedged, considering a question that had struck him from the outset. "If nobody heard shots, then it was probably a silenced pistol. Are you sure Cort didn't shoot the dog?"

"_Yes_." The ghoul's eyebrows ticced in slightly. "Who left. You said she didn't leave with anyone. So who did leave."

"Stockholm says she didn't go out, the only late travellers we've had were Burke and some Waste-"

"_Burke_?" Head finally snapping up, Charon made a noise like boulders grinding. "He did this."

"Burke? Why would Burke-"

"Revenge for not detonating the bomb."

"_What_?" Simms , Nova and Gob all chorused together.

"He tried to hire her to destroy the town. Tenpenny wants it gone."

"_WHAT_?" Simms wasn't sure what was riling him more; that it had taken him this long to learn something so dire, or the fact that the ghoul was delivering the information like it was a mild oversight. "Why the _hell_ didn't she say anything?"

Charon stood, contempt and disgust on his face and in his voice. "Why the _fuck_ would you expect her to tell _you _anything?"

He was suddenly snapping mad. "Well then why the hell didn't _you_? This whole mess could've been avoided if either one of you had had the sense God gave a Brahmin, so don't try to lay your mistakes at my feet. I'm tired of wading through the shit." His ire was gone again in a flash, watching the ghoul's eyes slip out of focus.

"I can't...it's her decision what...you get one chance for her to trust you, _one_, and you fucking pissed it away!" Charon screamed and stepped closer. "YOU FUCKING LET HER DOWN!"

Simms didn't move an inch. He stood there for Charon the same way he had for a hundred other people in a hundred different places; office buildings filled with choking rotted dust, frigid tunnels and flooded caves, desert baked so hard by the sun it was like being in Hell itself. He wondered just what hell the ghoul was going through now felt like, thinking about that. Considering how it was when he lost his wife he decided that it was probably all of them rolled into one. That sudden insight was what saved his life.

So Simms just stood patiently, just waited for him to work through it, knowing that Charon was really yelling at himself and hoping he had read the big merc right, knowing there was no hope of ending up on the winning side of things in this place with this person if things went bad. For the hundredth time, his trust in himself paid off. Barely a second past the last bellowed word, Charon's face was back to a stolid, unemotional mask. Simms' respect for him went up a slight notch.

"You done? Ready to man up?"

"Yes."

"Smart fellow. Now let's-" Simms stopped, snorted and turned as the wretched stench of burnt hair assaulted him from behind, the pungent reek so thick it was a physical slap, the rest of them doing the same in short order. Moira was there in the doorway, Dogmeat drunkenly weaving next to her legs. Her hair was frizzed out in an areola around her head, jagged wisps from her bun looking like they had tried to make a break for freedom and failed horribly, and Dogmeat was missing more than a few clumps of fur, fresh pink skin showing through up the front of his chest and down the left side. "_Moira_?"

"You asked for alive!" Ignoring Simms, Moira slashed her arm out and pointed at Charon, then at the dog. "You got alive!" She patted at her coveralls, yanked out a large bundle of Stimpaks and tottered over, slapping them into his hand. "Use one of these every time he starts leaking until he looks normal! Sorry for the self-maintenance required but there was a thing that happened!"

"_What_ hap-" He snapped his mouth shut and blinked as she screeched.

"_ALIVE_!" Moira gave them all one last frazzled look and then stormed back out, loose hair jouncing with each step.

Charon looked down at Dogmeat. Dogmeat rather blearily looked back at Charon. "We'll discuss your fuckup later." He frowned as the dog let out a disgusted snort followed by a short snarl, sounding like he was repeating the ultimatum back. "I _know_. Later. Let's go."

Simms watched him leave, not even bothering to try and stop him. He instead focused on the things he could do. The search for Cort would have to be completed, just in case. Burke's house would have to be tossed. His old contact with the Regulators would have to be notified; having a legit reason to gun for Alistair Tenpenny would make Sonora's damn year. A roster would have to be set up to watch the bomb, just in case anyone else had been sent to fool with it. And he had to have a long sit down with two people he should have been listening to a long time ago. "Nova, I need you to tell me every fool, reckless thing you've heard coming out of people's mouths since that scum rolled into this town; I don't care how crazy it sounds. If he tried to get an unknown kid to do his dirty-work, he probably started up with someone else. Gob, I'll need you to do the-" Simms turned back towards the door and stopped.

Gob was gone.

* * *

**Gob** found him less than five minutes later. In that limited amount of time, Charon had already suited up Dogmeat and stripped the supply lockers in the house of everything he wanted to take. He had his shotgun and Cort's sniper rifle, plus the two pistols Dogmeat carried. There were multiples of every type of grenade he had available, a limited amount of mines, and as much ammunition and medical supplies as he thought he could carry. Laid out under all of it was his old set of leather armour, black as pitch and kept oiled into silence by Wadsworth. He hadn't bothered to pack any for Cort to save weight; if there was time to dress her in her own, there was time to strip it off of whoever he was going to kill to get to her. "What, Gob."

"I can go with you."

Charon didn't bother to look up from what he was doing. "No."

"Why not?" Gob pointed to Dogmeat, who was leaning against the couch in an effort to stay upright. "Don't tell me I'll slow you down, because a squashed Bloatfly could go faster than him right now."

Finished with packing, Charon stripped off his boots. "She already has several reasons to be furious with me. I don't need you adding on another by getting yourself killed."

"_Jesus_!" Gob snapped his face up to the ceiling as the rest of Charon's bloodstained clothing rapidly followed suit, waiting to continue until he had climbed back into his leather pants and could look back down again. "Somebody else might need to be there to get her away."

He stopped in the middle of pulling on a fresh shirt and stared at him. "Why."

Gob sighed. "Where's your contract, Charon?"

"Where's _Nova_, Gob?"

Gob jammed his hands into his pockets and looked away again. "You know what'll happen if someone finds it on her."

"It's _not_ on her." Charon resumed dressing, tugging on his gloves and jacket, then adjusting the pauldrons and straps that ran over the latter. "They won't find it." Finished with everything, he took a last look around the house, slung his pack on and hauled Dogmeat up under his arm, his shotgun gripped in the other. He paused again at the door. "Gob."

"Yeah?"

"...Nevermind."

"Yeah."

* * *

**"You're** sure."

Dogmeat gave a tired whuff and collapsed. He was sure, and was staying put until Charon decided what he wanted to do with that information. Cort's trail had led from Megaton to the raider-infested ruins of Fairfax, past the outskirts of an Outcast outpost beset by those raiders, and straight into a small camp of apparently clueless Enclave.

Charon eyed the three of them from his vantage point on the top of the rise, two troopers and an officer, mulling over the possibility that the Enclave could be responsible for taking her. He dismissed it almost immediately. Simms may have not been on top of everything going on in his town(and here Charon took a moment to press down a surge of bitterness and self-recrimination), but he made a particular point of laying eyes on every single person who walked through the gates. He would have had no less trouble identifying them than Flak had back in Rivet City; they were too clean and too healthy.

On top of that, after listening to conversations back at the Citadel and the one Cort had recently had with Crow, it was clear that the Enclave had an even poorer opinion of the local populace than the more insular members of the Brotherhood did. They were practically paragons of xenophobia. Even if they _had_ stooped to using outside help, the mutt wouldn't have been tracking her scent all over the desert. They merely would have sent in a Vertibird at the outskirts of town and eliminated all hopes of pursuit.

"Let's go." Dogmeat scrabbled and whined, and Charon cursed. Looking at the dog lying at his feet, he again found himself almost blindingly angry, and that anger led to a snap decision. The bastards over the hill were the root problem behind all of this, making a wreck of everything he had found to be happy in since they had seized the Jefferson Memorial. It was a foolish risk, what he was about to do, but at this point he wasn't of a mind to care. _Besides. The mutt needs a rest anyway._

He crouched down, checking over Dogmeat and injecting him with another Stimpak for good measure. They had spent almost a full day getting this far, and close to two dozen Stimpaks had gone into the dog, whenever his piss ran red or the new skin on his chest started leaking. To the ghoul's infinite relief, this was happening less and less. "Stay. I'll be right back."

Charon stood there in the dying light of the day, made note of what he wanted to do, and set himself to it.

* * *

**"Defender** returning!"

Protector Casdin looked up from the log he was reading and shouted back to Defender Rockfowl. "How's she looking?"

"Like a pack Brahmin, sir. Looks like she had some fun."

Casdin raised his eyebrows. An hour or so earlier he had sent Morgan out to trail a sentient ghoul who had passed nearby. It was something he normally wouldn't have bothered to take note of, if he hadn't barrelled crossways through the pack of raiders they were having a firefight with. To be more specific, the dog the giant had been following had barrelled through them, appearing out of nowhere. The ghoul had grabbed the two who had moved to intercept by the neck and slammed both to the ground, not even breaking stride and disappearing just as quickly as he had appeared. Neither raider had gotten up again, and the panic it had caused had made mopping up the leftovers even easier than normal.

Thinking about it in the aftermath, Casdin had felt a little tickle at the back of his mind. Something offhand that Paladin Glade had mentioned in a covert message sent to warn them about the Enclave touching down and created a whole new set of problems and opportunities for them. "Morgan!"

The Defender had turned at her post under the overpass running in front of the Fort. "Sir!"

"Trail after that ghoul, see if he meets up with anyone, specifically a native female. She may be relevant to a project Protector McGraw is working on."

To her credit, Morgan had refrained from making any smart remarks about the possibility of a local being of help. "Yes sir, Protector Casdin!"

Watching her come back under the overpass, it seemed the venture had paid off, although not in the way he had expected. Morgan was hauling two sets of bundled Mk II power armour and a brace of plasma rifles.

"Well look at that. You're getting a favourable note in your file, Defender, if I get a favourable explanation devoid of any idiot stunts. Report."

"Small encampment of Enclave, three personnel including one officer. Communications gear on-site and intact. All tech I was able to move without assistance was retrieved." Morgan shook her head, sounding pensive. "But I didn't do this, sir. The ghoul did."

"Really? Well, good for him. I'm not one to turn my nose up at a windfall." He looked down at her haul. One trooper had been obviously shot, and with a decent amount of skill, the left eyehole of the helmet blown out. The second one was in a jumble of pieces, the seals at the joints torn apart and saturated in blood. Casdin frowned and dropped an eyebrow, trying to identify the cause. "Explosives?"

"No, sir. I waited when I saw what was going on, that he was heading in to fight, figured if I got lucky, the brute might give them enough of a go to let me swoop in and finish things off. They were probably setting up there to monitor us."

"And?"

"When there was only one soldier left, he stunned them with a pulse grenade, rushed in and..." She swallowed, her tinny voice taking on a decidedly green tone. "Bare hands, sir."

"Excuse me, Defender?"

"He just twisted until things came off, sir. Left all the tech behind when he was finished." Morgan swallowed again. "He kept their heads, though."

* * *

**She** thought the entire world had been swallowed up by the one inside her head, until things cleared enough for her to take note that the madness she was normally accustomed to being draped in didn't come with jostled steps, painful jabs and the punky smell of warm, mildewed canvas.

The canvas was everywhere. She remembered being able to feel it, at some distant point in the past, and made what was at that point, considering the state of her, a cognitive quantum leap. _I'm wrapped up. It's hot because _I'm _hot. I heat._

Cort blinked into the pitch black space in front of her, snuffling at the two hard stones shoved into her face for a long moment before she licked one and decided while it might be a salty, skin-wrapped rock, it was in all probability one of her knees. She gave a low, satisfied burble at solving this problem before she backslid into drugged stupidity.

"Right here. Be ready, she's coming around. _Again_." The muffled voice turned from frustrated to fussy. "And do be careful. We don't want to ruffle her feathers too much." There was a quick lurch, her small world turned on its axis as someone upended the sack she was in, and then she was slithering out like an oversized newborn, her mouth working as she tried to surface back into reality. The similarities didn't stop there. Finally sucking in a long, jagged breath, Cort moved her limbs and then screamed in agony as the blood rushed back into them.

"Tsk, tsk. Little birds need to stretch before they can fly."

Cort managed to ratchet back to breathless whimpering, trying to take note of everything at once. She was lying in a dim room, stripped of everything but her underclothes and smeared with offal and sweat. Her head was pounding so hard everything hurt; the air, the light, the simplest thoughts she tried to make, everything in her mind as slippery as her body was dry. She was half-naked, half-crazed and alone, and Burke was standing over her.

Dismissing him for the moment, Cort stared past him and latched her gaze onto the two Talons behind him, eyes burning. She was past anger, overflowing with the base sort of hate a person could be filled with after being pestered by a buzzing, eternally evasive insect for far too long. Cort let her mouth drop open, saliva breaking in strings as her tongue came loose from the roof and spattering out on her lips. "_You_."

"Miss Schafer."

Cort snapped her gaze back to him, wide-eyed in surprise before narrowing down to slits from a mix of pain and suspicion. "_Mister_ Burke."

"You have no idea how much I've looked forward to meeting you again."

"If it was that much of an anticipatory delight, maybe you should've avoided putting out a contract on my life."

"Business is business, Miss Schafer. I think we both know that the Talon Company hasn't been much more than a thorn in your side since the outset. Rather like you've been one to Tenpenny." He straightened, flicking imagined dust from his sleeves. "It turned out to be a fortuitous arrangement; watching you work has thoroughly captivated my attention. It's been quite some time since I was so...intrigued." Positively infuriated, Cort struggled to get up, her temper ratcheting even higher as she collapsed again and he clapped his hands lightly in response. "Well, it's good to see some things are effective on you. Fascinating."

"What the _hell_ have you been dosing me with?"

"Oh, a little of this, a little of that. I take it you've never been stung by a Radscorpion before now, otherwise you would recognize the paralytic effect. It must be such a novel experience for you." He leaned forward. "Heart racing, muscles thrumming, drenched with sweat and every moment an effort to catch your breath. Tell me Cort, how are you finding your first time?"

"Considering the company, greatly lacking."

If he had noticed the dig, he blithely ignored it. "Cort. Such a disservice to a perfectly elegant name. So fitting for a soiled dove. May I use it?"

Cort gritted her teeth and plucked weakly at her filthy undershirt. Things had gelled enough by now for her to notice that the mess on her was most likely of her own make. "How about we keep things formal, since you've apparently already taken liberties."

"I do apologize, but it was a necessary just-in-case. As much faith as I have in my own marksmanship, your pet has been known to be surprisingly resilient in the face of adversity. Fitting, considering his mistress." He sniffed. "Now, about your toilette. I hate the necessity of putting you in the position of having to accept another apology, but we need to hurry things along." Burke took off his jacket and carefully folded it, then handed it to one of the Talons before rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt and walking over to the far wall of what was obviously by now a utility room. Cort squinted as whatever he was doing produced an unfamiliar set of noises, trying to figure out what he was up to. "Besides, I would rather expect you're quite thirsty at the moment."

"What-" She was hit with what felt like a twenty pound sledge. Burke had turned back around with a fire hose in hand, a _working_ one, and Cort was pummeled into the far wall, shrieking and spinning from back to front on the steel floor as he moved the spray from her head to her feet. It was like being back in the sandstorm, one that was freezing cold instead of choking hot and powerful enough to tear her from the grip of the earth. There were no arms to hold her in place this time, and if she cried out for Charon, she was unable to hear it, even in the depths of her own head. Burke stopped what felt like an eternity later, leaving her clean and shaking in a draining lake of water on the floor.

"All clean? Ready to behave? I'm sure you'd like to avoid another dose of my little cocktail." Cort nodded, and he smiled before turning to the Talon who had tipped her out of the sack. "Good. Pick the lady up and bring her to the empty suite, then fetch Miss Lancaster. Make sure to mind your manners."

"But Mister Tenpenny said-" He fell silent and blanched as Burke turned to face him.

"I think we all know that Tenpenny allows me to operate solely at my own discretion. It's a good thing, isn't it?" He smiled, and the merc went even whiter before he hurriedly started moving towards Cort. "I knew you'd agree. Take her upstairs, please."

She cringed into the wall, waited long enough for him to reach out and grab the scruff of her shirt, then snapped her head around and bit in to his bare arm for all she was worth. Burke smiled broadly.

"There's my little falcon. I knew you wouldn't disappoint." His face twisted as the merc started raining blows down around her head and neck, which abruptly stopped after a familiar _'thwup!'_. "Didn't I say no ruffling your feathers? Honestly, you can't find good help these days."

Something in his other hand made a snapping noise and Cort felt another strike against her body, really just a little sting, before slipping back into the dark with her mouth still full of a dead man's blood.


	60. Hey, Baby, There Ain't No Easy Way Out

_As promised, the complete chapter 60! Workin' on 61 now. :)_

* * *

**She** woke up in a dress. Blinking slowly, she stared at the buttery linen draped over her legs and started singing in a weak tremble. "Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree...just you and me...me...I can't remember to be..."

A frail, waspish voice cut through the haze. "What the hell's wrong with her, Burke? You told me you were cleaning her up, not stringing her out."

"I know, it's quite curious that she's awake, isn't it? Someone of her delightfully pre-war build should've been out for hours. I really don't know how she's managed it."

"Creepy purple prose pulp novel." She laughed and tried to get up, which was when she noticed that she was also tied to the bed, arms spreadeagled, her neck and wrists bound against the headboard. "The _hell_?"

"May I compliment you on how well you've managed to keep yourself up? You can barely notice the damaged parts under your new plumage."

A few more things came to Cort's attention as her head cleared. Burke was at her side, his jacket still off and the sleeves still rolled. An ancient-looking man in a burgundy dressing gown sat beyond the foot of the bed on a simple kitchen chair, a sniper rifle lazily held across his lap. _Tenpenny. Has to be._ Cort frowned as more physical details filtered through. Her hair was pinned, the metal ends digging into her scalp, and something cloying and sticky had been spread over her lips. She stuck her tongue out, tapped at them, and tasted oily wax. _Wha-lipstick? Oh what the fuuuck_.

Burke grinned. "I do hope you end up liking the colour. I chose it myself."

Tenpenny looked at him, one weedy eyebrow cocked. "You have some strange proclivities, my boy."

He gestured towards the dress and then the ropes. "A lady should be presentable for company. Since she wasn't in a state to manage it, I obliged; and as the late little peon downstairs demonstrated, she tends towards...nippiness." He sighed. "We could have had such a delightful time together, if you had been mature enough to understand the gravity of my offer."

She twisted in place and snarled. "As I so inconveniently wasn't, why the_ fuck_ am I here?"

"Language." Tenpenny tsked, taking up the conversation. "You can't be that dense. I want to to erase that hole of a town out of my sight."

"I just fucking-!" Cort grappled for calm. "What makes you think I'd do anything to help you do that."

"Because there's no one else."

"Oh_ really_. You're telling me that in this whole wide Wasteland you couldn't find one other person to do your dirty work?"

"Of _course_ I did. They've already tried. What I couldn't find was someone who could make sense of the rat's nest you left that device's innards in. Wires missing everywhere! Not just cut but stripped right from the connections. But from what I've heard, you've proven to be a very bright, very conscientious little filly. You've got a brain like a catch-basin, an answer for everything pre-war and esoteric."

_Oh shit_. Cort faked a bland expression and kept talking as the back of her mind scrambled for who back in Megaton could have been possibly capable or crazy enough to fool around with the bomb. "Sorry, can't remember a thing past last Tuesday. It's all a blur. Probably a result of radiation poisoning."

"Oh, no no no, Missy. I don't buy that for a second. If you knew where you had to take things loose, you know where things have to go."

"So what if I do? I went from homeless to homed, and you want me to go back to the former? Nuh-uh. I've settled down now, I'm happy." She turned her attention to one of her hands, nonchalantly picking her thumb at the pink lacquer over her nails after giving it a brief, hateful glare. "Do the smart thing and let me go before things get messy."

Tenpenny snorted. "Yes, shacking up with the rotted mess of my old bodyguard. Very domestic and wholesome, I'm sure." He rolled his eyes as Cort whipped her head around. "Yes, I know you have him. Wastelanders prattle like old women when it comes to gossip, and then you so helpfully wandered by with him after retrieving your father." Tenpenny smiled, displaying worn teeth the colour of yellowed paper. "I had his head in the crosshairs all the way to that raider-infested drive-in theatre. Could have lifted that scabby scalp of his off a dozen times over."

Cort forcefully kept her face a mask of vicious hate as her insides clenched. "He'll come for me."

"Of course. He won't be able to help it." He sneered. "You think he feels for you, girl? The only thing that animal loves is his leash. The hand gripping it is entirely inconsequential." He sat back, idly stroking the side of the rifle. "I want to get this finished sooner than later, Burke."

She snapped her head back to face Burke, who heaved a long sigh, sounding regretful. "At least with so many, we can do this without having to worry about adding anything new."

"What-"

Cort choked as a wadded rag was jammed into her mouth, then tried to jerk back as he plucked a handkerchief from his pocket and deftly tucked it into the bustline of her dress. The movement was so smooth and entirely unwanted that she didn't notice his other hand slicing open her chest until she saw the blood running down to soak into the tidy little square. Seeing where he had cut, Cort finally started to panic. It was Charon's scar.

Burke wiped his knife clean on the edge of the handkerchief, his voice a slick whisper in her ear. "Tenpenny is just a means to an end, you know; someone with similar ideals in a position to be useful. We could be more than that. Imagine it. You and I, working for the greater good as we see fit. It would be a shame to have to take you out of the world. We're so much alike."

Cort stared at the line scored into the scar on her chest, thought of Wolfe and laughed until she was sick from it. She couldn't help herself. _Oh, you have no idea just how much._

* * *

**"Another** fucking day wasted. How could you be so fucking _stupid_?"

Dogmeat snarled, and Charon gave back one of his own. Worn thin, they had been sniping at each other for hours. It was well into the dusk of the second day, Tenpenny Tower coming ever closer as they walked and so oppressive in his heart and mind that it felt like the building was stalking towards them instead of the other way around.

Cort's stained shirt was balled up in his hands. His fingers flexed, then clenched up again to pull at the worn fabric. He had been worrying at it continuously since Dogmeat had found it lying in the dirt. Whoever had dragged it had started off at a dead run as soon as they dropped it, several different tracks heading off across the desert as the group had split off from each other and scattered.

Charon had spent time pulling himself together then, how long he wasn't sure, but any amount wasted had been too long. They had backtracked, the dog as infuriated as he was, and the next time the trail diverged, one branch leading south and one leading due north, Dogmeat hadn't even wavered from the genuine one. By that time, it had been more or less clear where they were going. Charon didn't find any satisfaction in confirming what he had known all along.

Ducking into the ruined office building he had holed Cort and James up in, the one where a fifth of his life's blood was still stained into the wall. Dogmeat raised his head and started circling, his teeth clicking in little snaps. If there was any plus to be had by going on a wild vulture chase, it was the time given for the dog's condition to improve. He still looked like a moth-eaten pile of shit, but now it was a much more active and vicious pile. Charon glanced towards their destination again, then eyed the dog. "We have to stop here. Skirt around from the other side."

Dogmeat lifted his hackles up and snarled directly at Charon, spit spraying back over his muzzle.

_So a royally fucking pissed pile too. Good_. He grunted in approval. "I don't care if you don't like it. It's your fault we're late and the eastern approach isn't safe. Anywhere in sight of that balcony." He jerked his chin up, and Dogmeat stopped to look. "We go west and double back to the rear." Charon checked over his shotgun. "Try not to get lost this time."

Dogmeat opened his mouth to grind out a retort, then stopped, cocking his head. Charon narrowed his eyes and did the same. Both stood there, heads tilted in unison, until the rasping, angry voice the dog had heard off in the distance had gotten close enough for the ghoul to hear.

* * *

**Roy** Phillips walked for exactly one hundred feet before he turned back to look at Tenpenny Tower. He stood there for a little while, opening and closing his mouth every few moments with the intent of screaming out at it before finally turning away and directing his anger back towards home. "Rotten sonsofbitches. They can't say I didn't give them every fucking chance. They can't say I never tried to play their game and do it the old-fashioned way. So now we'll play it my fucking way." He kept on ranting, at Tenpenny, the security chief, everything under the sun related to the Tower, wanting to get it well out of his system before he got back to Warrington Station and Bessie Lynn. He spared a small smile, the first one he'd had on his face all day. Sweet, sheltered Bessie Lynn. Coming in mad as hell would only upset her.

Rounding a small bluff, Roy managed not to startle too badly when he nearly walked straight into the giant who had seemingly sprung from the earth since he had walked over it fifteen minutes previously. He straightened his leather jacket and tried to appear unnerved. It was hard; the man was huge, and had a dog at his side that was the mangiest-looking piece of mean Roy had seen in a long while. Teeth shining dully, its lips seemed to be in a permanent wrinkle.

_Is there still rabies? Shit, can _we_ get rab...shut the fuck up, Roy_. He cleared his throat and tugged at his jacket again. The big man hadn't moved, was just staring down patiently and waiting. "Hey, brother. You come to join the revolution?"

He didn't respond immediately, just flicked his eyes up and idly contemplated the western sky for a moment, cloudy eyes mirrored with starlight. "I came to get into the old hotel."

Roy straightened, sensing a possible opportunity. "Then we've got our sights set on the same cherry. Name's Roy Phillips. Living down in the train tunnels hereabouts. You?"

His head tilted to the side. "Ron Schafer. From Underworld."

"Long way to be from, Ron." Roy dug a pack of smokes from his pockets, acting nonchalant. This conversation was showing promise, and it wouldn't do to seem too excited. "So why'd you leave?"

"Didn't much like the company I had to keep. Didn't like the Brotherhood taking potshots every time I went out for air."

Roy pressed for specifics. "So you pulled up stakes over that? Just some bad company?"

He smiled at this, a brief but genuine show of real feeling, something Roy found himself grateful for. It did a lot to mitigate the unnerving mechanical air the guy was giving off. "There may have been an incident with a smoothskin that required me to leave."

"Shit. Must have been one hell of an incident for those pansies to bump you out over it." Finally fishing a cigarette out of the battered pack, Roy popped a match from his other pocket and took a drag, speaking again on the exhale. "Well shit, Ron, who can blame you? Not, me, no way. Smoothies think the can lord it over us in there, keep us down in holes. 'You have a city, go live there', like that gulag in the old history museum is something to strive for. Talking like it's some fucking concession they gave us, then coming in like it's a zoo and acting like _we're_ the animals. Me, I want better for me and my people." He spat. "I don't know how old you are brother, but I'm pre-war. Got my girl living in a fucking pit in the ground, and for someone who remembers what came before, it's one hell of a nail up my ass. Hell, our asses. You know I got a buddy who actually used to vacation here?"

His eyes finally moved back down to Roy's. "You've been monitoring them for a while."

"Fuck, I stake this place out daily looking for an in." He barked out a laugh, honestly amused for once. "Give me lousy coffee and a radio with an asswipe C.O. barking in my ear and I could be back on the job. Used to be a cop up in-"

"I want to know what activity you've seen in the last forty-eight hours."

All of Roy's earlier unease came back in a hurry. Operating on a gut feeling, he sidled away slightly. "Well aren't you a load of hot shit. You know what? You want anything from me, we're going to have to talk about what I'm going to get out of the deal first. I've got things that need do-"

* * *

**"This** isn't a matter of what you think you can get from me." Charon snapped his hands out, one grabbing Roy by the throat and the other neatly divesting him of his assault rifle. He was quicker than expected in reacting to the grab, but not quick enough. "It's what I'll leave you intact with. I don't have time to be nice like she would want, so I'll keep things simple instead." Ignoring the other man's kicks and punches, he forced Roy's mouth open and grabbed his tongue between the knuckles of his first two fingers, his voice calm and easy.

"This is what is going on. They took _my_ girl. They came into our home, and _took my girl_. So this is what is going to happen." Charon tightened his grip. "I will ask you questions. If you withhold the information I require, I will rip this out and feed it to the dog. Nod if you understand." Roy nodded. "Tall, sunglasses, fedora, light suit. Did he come back?" Another nod. "Alone?" A shake no. "How many. Blink the number." Five blinks. "Was one of the others a small female." A hesitation. "You couldn't tell." A nod. Charon thought for a moment. "Was one of them carrying something that could have been a person." Another, longer hesitation, then a firm nod. "Good." He paused and thought again. "There is a slim chance she might like you. If you're interested in relocating, I'd give this place a thought in approximately twenty-four hours."

Charon gave him a quick pat-down, then let go of him and handed back his rifle, first ejecting the round in the chamber and removing the magazine. That done, he started walking away to the west, Dogmeat falling in behind. Coughing and spitting, Roy bawled out after him.

"Hey! You think you're fucking hot shit? Hell will freeze over before you can get in!"

"Wrong, asshole." Charon muttered over his shoulder. "I never got out."

* * *

**After** the encounter with Roy, the pair of them had circled around as planned and then waited until slightly past midnight for the final run at the hotel, their nerves chafing raw as the hours slid by to the point where Charon deemed it late enough for most of the inhabitants to be asleep or otherwise incapacitated through drink, drugs or other pursuits.

Coming around to the rear of the hotel, he found what he hadn't allowed himself to dare hope for. He ducked immediately behind a large outcropping and started breaking out his gear. Part of the wall had collapsed, back when he had still been employed here, just enough that someone determined could scramble over it. It hadn't been seen as an issue then, ironically because of him, and apparently no-one had ever tried.

He debated as he readied himself. He hadn't run into any opposition, there had been no patrols outside of the fortified walls, no sign that the current security force had any idea of what was about to ram itself straight down their throats. There was the possibility that the personnel here could be that good at faking obliviousness, but he highly doubted it.

Still. The hole still being in the wall was a messy oversight. It could be a sign of overconfidence, a sign of a certain British bastard's cheapness, or a trap.  
If it was a trap, it was a sloppy one; it would get him inside regardless, and once he was inside, it was only a matter of time and effort. He turned to Dogmeat, punched a few more Stimpaks around the base of his ragged ruff, eyed him carefully, and then reluctantly removed the dog's armour, stowing it in a large crack in the rock behind them. Faster and quieter this way. "Stay behind and hidden until I say otherwise. Let's go."

* * *

**Charon** had known the tower still had residents, even without Roy sounding off, even without finding the two he had ambushed while they enthusiastically screwed on the billiard table in the ground floor lounge(and were now tied up in the utility room and probably thinking they were totally screwed, or would once they regained consciousness), but the identity of the one in front of him now had been wholly unexpected. He had burst out from one of the suites as the ghoul had snapped the neck of the last security guard stationed in the hallway of the third floor, whatever battle cry he had been about to yell out dying in his throat. It sounded almost identical to the guard's death-rattle.

Charon took one look at the combat shotgun aimed point-blank at his chest, so like his own it could have been the weapon's twin, looked at the wrinkled, gape-mouthed face behind it that was still struggling to find words to spit out, dropped the dead guard like a bag of trash and sneered in a disgusted whisper.

"Well holy fucking _shit_. Herbert Dashwood finally has nothing to say."


	61. Stand Us Up at the Gates of Hell

_Thanks for the new reviews! For anyone paying attention to chapter titles, yes, I listen to music while I work! This week is Tom Petty Week. I suppose the next few chapters are the heartbreakers._

* * *

**Dashwood** jerked his eyes from the body on the tiles and back up to Charon. "_What_?"

"And there went that dim hope." He let out an impatient breath though his nose as Dashwood spared a quick glance at the body again.

"Are you here to kill everyone?"

"If I was here to kill everyone, you would already be dead." Aside from the guards, he hadn't killed anyone. He had considered it, considered wiping the building clean, but the idea of that was distasteful in the extreme even with how jacked up his emotions were. The residents were sheep, not soldiers. Charon eyed the shotgun. At least most of them were, apparently.

"I'm not too senile to not recall me just getting the drop on you."

Charon tensed his shoulders. "Shuttup."

"I can't do that, remember? So, why are you here?"

"I can get that gun away from you and you know it."

Dashwood's face hardened up to match his. "I can get a shot off before you do, and you know that. I'm not too old to make things into one hell of a mess for you."

_Now isn't that a fucking understatement. _Charon ground his teeth. "Tenpenny abducted my employer."

The alarm on his face came rushing back in an instant, his lips thinning up to disappear into his snowy beard before he spoke. "Holy God. Is there a chance he lost your contract to him?"

Charon suppressed a flinch. _No, no chance, no no no- _"None. Unlike you, she can hold on to things. _Including_ her tongue."

Dashwood brightened immediately. "_She_? Who she?"

"You don't get to know her name." Charon snapped. He hadn't let Cort know Dashwood's either. Admitting that his contract had been lost by a gullible trader in a dirty two-bit poker game had been bad enough. Fessing up to the fact that that trader had been a broke, unknown, barely post-pubescent _Dashwood_ would have jacked the degree of humiliation up to an almost comedic level, if it hadn't been so horrifyingly depressing.

Since his contract had first been sold, his net worth had fallen from tens of thousands of caps to a hotel suite to covering the last bit of a last-ditch bet made up of a pocket watch and six cans of Cram. It made him ache now, to think of how hard Cort had worked to buy it, hard enough for the hurt and the loss to show on his face, long enough for Dashwood to see.

"Well, damnation. Look at you." Dashwood lowered his shotgun and sighed. "Alright. Let's see what we can do for you. Pick up Ted and drag him in here before someone else decides to go for a late night wander."

Charon grabbed the dead guard by the collar and complied, Dashwood following after and shutting the door after one last look down the hall. He spared a glance around the room, briefly eyeing the bookcases cluttered with souvenirs and keepsakes, the rumpled bed, the empty bottles, before snapping them back to the old man by the door.

"So." Dashwood rocked back and forth on his heels. "You kept the gun I gave you."

Charon dropped the body once again and advanced, jabbing a finger at him. "I'll fucking give it back to you buckshot first if you don't start talking. I don't give a shit how much of a mess you end up making."

"No, I suppose you wouldn't spare much thought at all." Dashwood deflated back against the jamb and sighed, seeming to age even further. "Go on and ask your questions, son. I suppose I owe you that much."

"Yes. You _do_."

Charon held his tongue as Dashwood outlined everything he had observed about his residence and the other inhabitants, picking over every pertinent detail and comparing them against his memories. Nothing much had seemed to have changed in the ensuing decades between his near-murder by Tenpenny and Cort pulling him out of Underworld. The building was still uninhabited save for the top and bottom three floors, the remainder of the space blocked off and standing empty as a buffer between Tenpenny, his chosen elite neighbours and the rest of the world. The only real difference of note seemed to be a change in bodyguards.

"Tell me about Burke."

"Burke is one hell of a nasty customer. Tenpenny never bothered me much, aside from choking on his ego, none of these stuffed shirts or meathead guards do, but _him_...Burke is a whole different kettle of fish altogether. If I was still on the short side of fifty, he might even scare me."

He lifted a patchy eyebrow. If there was one thing Dashwood had never been short on, it was honest bravado. "But not now?"

"The only thing that gives me a fright these days is not knowing if I'll make it to the toilet in time to save my slacks." Dashwood snorted, then slumped again."I'm sorry I can't tell you more. It's a bad situation for you to be in."

"Well, you'd know about that, wouldn't you."

"I am sorry, Charon. Lady Luck just wasn't with me that day."

"Lady Luck was bent over and taking it up the ass. If you're expecting forgiveness-"

"No, no I'm not. I know you've got good reason to be upset. Losing your contract to fool chance was-"

Charon cut him off. "No, you lost my contract because you were too much of a fool to notice when a ghoul's got an extra ace stuffed up his fucking arm."

"Everyone had their sleeves rolled to the elbow in that game. He insisted on making things fair and even."

"I said _arm_, not sleeve. He didn't roll up the fucking pocket of loose fucking skin on his fucking wrist, now did he?"

Dashwod stared at him, incredulous. "Wh-_why _didn't anyone say anything?"

"The only person not bought in that game was _you_, you fucking idiot!" Charon closed his eyes, let out a long breath and forced himself calm. "I don't have time for this shit." He moved to the door, listening and then opening it to peer down the hallway. A very quiet, very irate snort drifted out from somewhere. "Alright, come out. We're going."

"Who are you talk-" Dashwood shut up abruptly again as Dogmeat trotted up to the door and wrinkled his lips. He gave Charon a pointed look. "Well, look at that. I didn't know you came in a four-legged variety."

Charon gave him an evil one back and left the room, heading back down the stairs to the main lobby, Dogmeat on his heels and Dashwood not far behind. He spoke up as Charon reached the elevator to the penthouse.

"Why did he take her?"

Pushing the up button, Charon fished Cort's screwdriver out of a pocket and used it to jam the doors when they opened, then moved into the car and reached up for the ceiling, tapping gently. "Because she disarmed the bomb in Megaton instead of doing what Tenpenny wanted."

"And what exactly did he want? No, nevermind. I don't want to know." Dashwood ran a hand over his face. "Wait, she's _that _she?"

"She's none of your concern." Finding the edges of the access panel, Charon pushed it open, lifted himself up through the hole long enough to check the roof and then slapped his chest with both hands when he dropped back down to his feet, catching Dogmeat and boosting him up through the hole when he jumped for it. That done, he disabled the lights next, turning it into a dim little cave.

"I tried to buy it back afterwards." Charon jerked slightly and Dashwood hurried on. "He tried to convince me you were happier with your own kind."

"I don't _have _a kind." He snorted in disgust and started pulling himself up. "And the only thing you ever did better than spilling secrets was eating up the lies people slicker than you told."

"Not always. Sometimes I see through to the heart of things very well." Dashwood went quiet for a moment, then hurried forward. "I'll go with you. You'll need help."

Charon dropped down once more and rounded on him, hissing. "_No_. All I need is _her_."

He backpedaled out of the elevator, surprise turning into a thoughtful, distant look. "All right, Charon. All right. You go get her, and tear the whole damn house down. I suppose it's about time somebody did."

Charon scrambled up and closed the panel, then paused on top of the darkened car, thinking. Dashwood was the only employer he had had aside from Cort that he hadn't killed or genuinely wished he could have. The man had had no way of knowing what was going to happen, just as he himself hadn't, and Charon hadn't tried to object, not being able to see a change in his circumstances as anything but an improvement. It had been a short, bitter seven years spent as a ghoul, and he had expected better treatment from another; a more comfortable place to hide his shame from the world.

Hooking his legs around a strut, he popped the panel and swung back down, looking like a giant ragged bat in the gloom. "Herbert."

He stepped forward slightly. "Yes?"

"If you don't want to end up dead, either lock yourself up or get lost." Deciding that finished things for good, Charon yanked the screwdriver loose, jabbed the button for the top floor and ducked back up. If Dashwood had had anything to say in response, all it could meet were the closing doors.

* * *

**There** was only one guard on the top floor, his face half-buried in a comic book. The other half lifted off with a quiet _'thwup!' _from Cort's silenced pistol, and Charon darted forward to catch him, gently setting the body down to the floor without making a sound. The time for stealth almost past, he exchanged the pistol for his shotgun and turned to Dogmeat, mouthing out a question.

_'Where?'_

Dogmeat moved from door to door, stopping when he reached the one directly adjacent to Tenpenny's. His lips moved back in a muted snarl. Charon matched it with a slightly excited one. He was here, he had found her, and she was in a suite with more than one room. With any amount of luck, he could get the drop on both Burke and Tenpenny.

_'How many aside from her?'_

The dog stretched his neck out and tugged silently at his pant leg; once, twice.

Charon crouched down and grabbed his muzzle with his free hand, leaning in close, his voice barely above a whisper. "Stay out here unless she calls you. Hide. If anyone but us comes out, kill them. Rip them to shit." He dropped his head, then brought it back up to glare into the dog's eyes, clouded white meeting sharp brown and blue. "If I come out without her, kill _me_. You understand? You turn me into fucking _meat_."

Charon didn't wait for an answer, just let go of the dog and entered the suite, shotgun at the ready. The first room held nothing, and he had time to grasp at a rush of hope.

He barely had time to break from cover before the nightmare in the second swallowed him up.

* * *

**"Charon**, I order you to stand down!" Tenpenny roared, his spindly arm flying up. "OBEY YOUR CONTRACT, BOY!"

Thunderstruck, Charon stared at the crusty thing in Tenpenny's hand, his eyes dissecting every minute detail. The right size. The right writing, wherever it wasn't smeared with blood. The same notches, the same folds, the same everything. It couldn't be, it _couldn't_ and he tore his gaze away to stare at Cort...and found her staring in wide-eyed horror at a swollen, clotted cut dug into her chest. Charon felt like everything had been gouged out of his.

"_Cort_. You _promised_ me." There was no anger in his voice, just a flat, resigned sadness. She jerked her head up and started screaming against the gag, her head whipping back and forth in denial. Charon twitched and looked away from her as Tenpenny snapped out again.

"Charon!"

"_Fuck _y-"

Tenpenny spoke quickly in a calm even tone. "I order you to shut up, Charon."

The words died in his throat so fast it felt like he was choking on them, them and the others he tried to pile out after.

"Good boy. Now don't speak unless I want you to. I was tired of your voice then and I'm definitely tired of it now. Filthy, filthy sound." Tenpenny wrinkled his nose, displeased. "I gave you an order before that one, boy. _Obey it_. Better yet, hand that clumsy thing over."

Charon felt like he was being torn apart, the mental strain -the pure _agony_- worse than anything he had ever felt. _I have to obey my contract_. It lessened. _But _she's_ my contract. I refuse to-_

The ghoul nearly crumpled as a sudden flash of pain ripped through him. The next second, his shotgun was held out to Tenpenny with hands that no longer felt like his own. The old man took it and set it beneath his chair, looking almost triumphantly pleased.

"Very, very good. Now put the rest down at your feet. Pistol, grenades, knives, all of it." He nodded approvingly as Charon slowly did as he was told. "You can still listen even without your ears on. So let's reinstate all the standing orders you had with me, shall we?" Tenpenny wafted his contract back and forth. "What do we say?"

"Yes...Sir."

* * *

**He** hadn't been happy with having to tail behind, not one bit. Once he had started feeling better, stopped feeling _itching _and _burning_ and _aching_ all he had wanted to do was dig and twist and tear, and now he was supposed to hide, hide and wait and tear the big world if the other came crashing down. The scent of her blood was _everywhere_.

Dogmeat sucked in a breath as someone yelled, slunk into the room until he was nearly across it, getting ready to disobey and charge, then stopped in his tracks, his claws gouging up furrows in the carpeting as his nostrils clogged up with a new scent. He dragged in another gout of air, wanting to confirm the impossible. The big world also stank of fear, positively _reeked_ of it; and not the sharp alarm of adrenaline he emitted on rare occasions, but a yellow fog of outright terror, sickly sweet and pungent. Mixing in with his first world's coppery odour, it was enough to make his bladder quiver. He flexed his claws again, digging deeper.

The confusion of it all was maddening. There was nothing in the room to be that afraid of that he could detect, just the one who had shot him and another, older man, smelling of camphor and shit.

Dogmeat rocked from paw to paw, head up and nose pressed to the corner. He was supposed to stay, stay until he was collected or called. He would have to wait, and hope that it was the best thing to do.

* * *

**"I **detect a certain measure of hesitation. Still trying to fight it, are we?" Tenpenny turned to Cort. "He _is_ sweet on you. Hmph. Makes him brave." He turned back once again. "That's a switch, now isn't it, boy? You never did have much spine for anything. Uppity, but not much spine at all. Charon, I order you not to listen to anything that girl says to you, you hear me?"

"Yes, Sir." No hesitation this time.

"Good boy. You'll get your little toys back when you've earned them." Tenpenny wrinkled his nose. "And let's have you stand a bit farther away. I order you to keep a distance of six feet from myself unless otherwise stated. At least until I figure out how to deodorize you."

"Yes, Sir." Charon obediently moved to the side, stopping precisely at six feet from Tenpenny's chair.

"That's how you get results, girl. Keep yourself from getting into untidy predicaments like this one." He leaned forward, his yellowed teeth smeared with spittle. " You show him the _whip_. Burke, remove the gag. This should be entertaining."

The words were tumbling from her mouth the instant they were freed. "Charon, listen to me, please!" His head didn't turn, his eyes didn't move, and she screamed. "_CHARON_!" Cort stared, her breath coming in desperate rales. There was no reaction at all.

Tenpenny shifted in his seat and chuckled. "Oh, do ask him again. It's extremely amusing."

"Charon, it's not-" Cort cut herself off. _Not your contract._ It was the fake, the dummy she had made what seemed like a lifetime ago and kept buried in her back pocket, crumpled and forgotten. _I never told him it was there. I never told him I went through with making it, and if I tell him now, if I tell him now they'll _know_. Oh Jesus. Oh Mary._ Cort flicked her eyes over to Burke, then back to Tenpenny. Both were far out of reach and could easily shoot Charon the moment he made a move against them. Burke could easily strike something vital, and with a sniper rifle at point blank range, it wouldn't matter where Tenpenny managed to hit. _I have to think. Think, think, think, there's got to be something, just _think_, damnit!_

Tenpenny irritatingly cleared his throat. "Now, with that business out of the way, on to the next matter. I've decided you're going to draw out exactly what it is that needs to be done to make that device operational again. Considering your obvious propensity for doing something stupid, that would be the most prudent option."

_Think-think-think-_ "Suck it, you dyspeptic prick." Cort widened her eyes and stared, kept staring straight at Tenpenny and nothing else, the sheer force of it making him do the same. _Stop thinking. Just watch._ "You hear me? I am talking to you! I said _suck it_!" There it was again. An imperceptible tremble, a twitch, the tips of five large, bitten fingers fluttering against a leathered thigh. Cort bared her teeth and laughed. _Loopholes._

"You have a home. You've settled down, you're happy. Happy with whom, hmm?" Tenpenny leaned back, smiled, and picked up a tumbler from the table beside him. "Charon, I order you to punish yourself. _Without _causing any lasting damage. Take off the appropriate glove." He made a face. "And move off of the carpeting first."

"No, _no_, don't you FUCKING DARE-" Burke crammed the wadded cloth back into her mouth, and all she could do was watch and thrash as Charon tugged his right glove off, took the tumbler, returned to where he had been and took two extra steps back, then smashed it hard against the side of his own face, shredding his cheek and palm nearly to ribbons as he dragged his hand down. His expression was one of pure, livid hate. Tenpenny glanced at it briefly and snorted.

"What did I tell you? Uppity. No matter. I think you've you have a very good reason to change your mind about my little proposition, my girl. Take a few moments, let me know when you've gathered yourself, and we'll continue."

Charon dropped his arm down to hang like a dead weight and Cort watched the blood streaming down to collect in the hollow of his throat, heard it pattering to the floor from his ripped palm, smelled it mixing with the awful stench of her own fear as it accumulated on the warm tiles at his feet. She was drowning in it. _What do I do. Daddy, what do I do I can't give up, Dad, _Dad_, what do I-_

Cort gasped as everything pressing in on her broke through, forced everything open as it rushed in to fill every space, seeping down to the very base of her heart and soul.

Then something buried there took a breath.

Charon's face was starting to clot. She held her own up to Burke, who removed the gag. "You have no idea how much I'm like _him_."

Burke raised an eyebrow. "Beg pardon?"

She spat at him in response, almost delicately, then looked at Tenpenny.

"No."

"Excellent, I'm gla-_what_."

"No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?"

"I mean I'm not going to help _you_, of all people, murder an entire _town_ for one man who would hate my guts if I did. I mean you can go fuck yourself. You can jam that rifle all the way up your spavined ass and lick shit backwards off the barrel, you can go pound sand and get bent. If that doesn't clarify my negative position in regards to your proposal, then you might want to examine yourself and decide whether advancing senility has impacted your ability to think properly or if you're just a _fucking_ moron. Not that you've ever had a proper thought in your head in your life, you antediluvian sonofawhore."

His wrinkled, sour face puckered up in a moue of distaste as she flung profanities at him, cinching tighter with each addition. "Well, I see the mongrel has managed to rub his mouth off on you in more ways than one. He'll keep harming himself."

Cort snorted and looked at him disdainfully. "And I'll keep saying no. He can take anything you throw at him and come back for more. I know what you've made him do. You're not going to use him to harm anyone else, not through me. You're probably planning to murder me either way, so I might as well preserve our dignity and not risk spending the rest of what time I have left on this earth unable to look him in the face."

"You think this is dignity?"

"I think I'm the line you can't make him cross."

"Don't you care that it's hurting him?"

Cort jutted her chin out, defiant. "He doesn't care if he hurts."

Tenpenny let out a resigned, half-impatient sigh. "No, but he might care if you do. Burke, put the gag back in. Charon, I order you to beat her."


	62. Can You See It Coming Down

_Thanks for the ace reviews and messages folks, and welcome to you new readers! ETA: whoops old copy-paste of the first gagless paragraph was in there. My editing bad. Fixed now, sorry for anyone who read that and went 'wtf?'_

* * *

**The** first blow was a stinging open-handed slap that didn't do much more than make her cheek welt up and her eye water. It nearly made her crumple all the same. Cort blinked hard, trying to clear her eye as she brought her attention back to Tenpenny. He grinned wide at her shocked, accusing stare.

"Yes, he did it, didn't he! Unfortunately for you, it didn't convince me. Convince me, Charon, or I'll find someone else to do it!"

She had just enough time to clench her gut up tight before the ghoul's fist barreled into it, knocking all her air out in a woosh, the expulsion cleanly cut off when his other hand cracked across her face hard enough to smash her head back into the wall, her legs flying out in reflex. Cort let it loll forward again after the impact, not able to do anything else. Her good ear was ringing loudly from the force of the blow, and her other felt like it was stuffed with swollen cotton, her tongue made of the same. She thought people were talking, but everything sounded like bells, heavy, thunderclap bells mixed with the chimes in the back of her head, made of the iron her lungs had turned into. She would kill everyone responsible for this, she would _annihilate _them, and she lifted her face up to try and glare-

Her head went back again, but this time it instantly cleared at the feeling of her nose snapping on the old break. It shoved everything muddling it up out in an excruciating bolt of pain and a hot freshet of blood. Cort let out something halfway between a roar and a wail, her trapped breath hot in her throat, then looked up to Charon and started laughing, small bubbles of blood frothing from one of her nostrils in time to it. It was the only thing she could do; that, or lose herself entirely to despair. _Well, I didn't see this coming._

"Excellent work, Charon! I don't know what I ever did without you, my boy."

Cort stared as the panicked look in the ghoul's eyes glazed over, and he let out a stuttered sighing noise.

"Remove the gag." Burke reached out and plucked it from her mouth as Tenpenny smiled. "Are you ready to consider my proposal now?"

She spat out a mouthful of blood, grimacing when it sprayed over her legs. _Ah fuck, I wanted that in his lap...I can't breathe_. "I'm sorry, what? My nose is a little itchy, it's rather distracting."

"Allow me to redirect your attention. Charon, I order you to remove her glove and drive...this pen through her left hand." He shifted in his seat, holding up a gold fountain pen and uncapping it. "Can't risk damaging the device, it might prove useful."

Cort couldn't help it. She jerked away and tried to kick as Charon retrieved the pen and walked back towards her, choking on both the rope and words that flooded out in a torrent. "No, _nononopleasedon't_, It's not his fault, it's not his fault, _it'snothisfault_-!"

Ignoring her feet striking into his belly and side, Charon grabbed her hand, wrenched her fingers back to splay her palm open and then Cort saw nothing but white flecked with black spots for what seemed like ages until a new wash of red hate and adrenaline slopped over her, and the ringing scream in her throat died into throaty sobs. "Not his fault. It's_ not_."

Burke leaned in to whisper in her ear. "It's not too late to change your mind about a new partnership, you know."

Cort gritted her teeth. "Thank you, but I have a prior commitment." Burke gave her an admiring look as Tenpenny cut back in.

"Excellent Charon, very good work." The ghoul made the same stuttering sigh, and Tenpenny smiled slightly before looking back to Cort. "Does _that_ itch, missy?"

She cast a bleary eye over at her maimed hand, the fleshy webbing between her thumb and index finger now sporting a ragged, ink-rimed hole. Making another weak laugh as blood started seeping out from around the pen in earnest, she tilted her head up to look at the ghoul. "No, it's tickling me, actually, right down to my toes. I'm _left-handed_, you stupid fuck. I could have _tried _ writing like this, but you had him put in in backwards!" Cort clenched her hand into a fist and laughed even harder, blurring her vision again. She couldn't look away from Charon's face, and couldn't bear to see it. _I can't find him there oh Mary he's gone-_

Burke tilted his head, sounding curious. "What do you hope to accomplish from this?"

Cort released her grip and smiled. "Die doing the right thing and make my Daddy proud?"

"You think this would make him proud?"

"No. He'd have probably goaded one of you into blowing his head off by now." She slammed her head back against the wall again, yelling at the ceiling. "Don't worry, I'll try harder next time!"

Tenpenny shook his head, an almost wondering expression on his wizened face. "You really are stark raving mad."

Cort dropped her head back down and spoke directly to him. "Not yet. I can't go all the way just yet. I have to take care of him, see him safe. I have to take care of Charon. That's how it works, you syphilitic pustule, he takes care of _me_, I take care of-" She was cut off by another hard slap across the face.

When she could think straight again, she rolled her eyes back up to Charon's and saw that he was looking right back. "Why? You didn't have to that time, _why_?"

Tenpenny crowed. "Taking some initiative! I'm very proud of you, Charon. See what I told you girl? He loves pleasing the_ leash_."

"SHUT UP YOU FUCKING BASTARD, HE WOULD NEVER-" Her stomach tightened up as understanding dawned on her. _He would. Oh, he would, to get my attention_.

Cort stared hard at the ghoul and realized something else that struck her worse than one of his oversized fists. There was recognition back in his eyes, fighting to come out from under the blankness that kept swamping over them, and love, and a hopeless, empty fear that was quite possibly the worst thing she had ever seen on his face. She would let him be hurt to save who he was, and Cort knew in an instant that he would do the same to save her. Charon meant to kill her, to get her away, help her escape the only way he was now capable of before he was forced into making her a pliant pile of mangled flesh.

He could have broken her neck with the first blow, but waited for her to see and remember what he had told her about what he had done, what he had refused to tell her, so she could understand his choice and give him permission to make it. Cort smiled up at him, to let him see that she was giving it. She took a deep breath and hoped it would help him hate himself less, not more for giving up.

Unfortunately, Tenpenny saw it also. "That's enough!" Charon's hand trembled, and he snapped out again. "I said that's _enough_. We don't want to kill her too soon, now do we. Spoil our fun. After all, you became so skilled at keeping people alive long enough to cooperate." He gave her a shrewd look. "You're too clever by half. Charon, don't you listen to a single damn thing that comes out of her mouth. Not a word, not a slip of a whimper. I'd also like to say again that you do very good work, my boy, splendid. It is indeed a pleasure to have your more than competent service yet again."

Cort darted her eyes from one to the other as Charon's expression became progressively drugged-looking before snapping back to a blank slate when Tenpenny snarled out again. "Suffocate her until she passes out, and then, well." He rubbed his hands together briskly, producing a dry, papery sound that made Cort want to retch. "I'd like you to know that I've kept all his favourite tools. Nostalgia, you see. You should have been prudent and came around to my way of thinking, girlie. It would have saved you a terrible load of grief."

"I carry a lot of things." Thinking as fast as she could, Cort dropped her chin to her chest and smiled a secretive, sad little smile, deciding to take one last gamble. If she could make Charon realize what had happened, they could both play along long enough to strike back. _Okay. One last shot. If this doesn't work, I promise not to scream. No matter what, I'll make it easier. I can do that much_. "I'll always have room to carry more."

"And I've had enough." Tenpenny shook his head, and then his rhuemy eyes sharpened. "Burke, gag her again. And _tie_ it in. Charon, stop lollygagging, be a good lad and _obey_, you hear me? Now _strangle_ the little bitch. It'll be a relief for everyone concerned."

* * *

**It** was like being trapped in a prison made of himself. Part of him, the thinking, feeling, true part wanted to stop, felt like it was scrabbling around at the bottom of a chasm, bashing itself against the walls. Every hit would splinter what was left, making him ever smaller.

Charon stepped closer in to the bed as soon as Burke had finished, feeling like his body was moving without his permission; the entire thing just a giant empty shell he held no part in controlling. That small, fighting part spoke up dimly as he planted a knee on the mattress for support and leaned in, sounding like it was now very far away. _Of course it is. That's all you are, you useless mindless fuck_.

That thought was lost in a rising tide of euphoria. The feeling had gotten thicker and thicker as the minutes had ticked by, smothering him for longer and longer periods of time. Reaching out was starting to feel like the right thing to do. It wouldn't hurt anymore if he did, it wouldn't make him sick; it would feel _good _when he finished the task, when he obeyed his employer. If he just reached out and started choking the girl, everything would be perfect. It was what he was made to do.

"That's a good boy, go on now, Charon. Almost there."

The stuttering sigh broke out from his mouth again, and he felt the warmth of it spreading up his back and over his neck. _Just do it. You'll feel so much better then. She doesn't even look like anyone you know anymore. Everyone is faceless save your employer. _Looking at the mess of blood in front of him, he faltered until Tenpenny let out a reedy screech behind him. _Your employer, save your employer save her save Cort-_

"_Do it now, Charon! That's an order_!"

Another few pieces broke off, and the true voice inside grew very quiet. "Yes, sir."

If Cort had tried to scream, or struggle, or do anything to oppose his actions like any normal person would do, it might have been over for them both right then. As it was, she did what she normally did; something wonderfully, impetuously crazy. Watching his outstretched hands unclench and reach for her throat, she leaned into them as much as she could, met his eyes as she always did and smiled, the corners of her mouth trying to hitch up around the gag. It made one of the splintered parts that was left of him dig straight into his heart. She was trying to make it easy for him.

He couldn't stop, but he could exert enough control to make it as slow as possible, gradually cut off her blood and airway and put her to sleep almost gently as she suffocated, and keep her with him for as long as he could. It would be his punishment.

She kept smiling even as he slowly started to tighten his grip, eyes crinkled and clearly amused about something, then did something even more stunning. She winked, making an odd twitch when she did it. Charon looked down at her, torn between a flush of obscene contentment, the deepest misery he had ever felt, and a sudden surge of consternation.

Both of the latter feelings increased as she took in his expression and then rolled her eyes, clearly struggling for patience. Her lips turning blue, she looked resigned and then fixed him with a patient, even stare, the one that had always meant she was trying extremely hard to explain something that was right in front of his face. Cort winked and twitched again, using what was by now obviously ebbing strength to do it twice in rapid succession, doing it hard enough to almost smash his hand between the right side of her neck and shoulder.

Charon froze, and her eyes filled with a livid, feral triumph, cutting through the glassy fog they were fading into. Slowly letting go, he slid his left hand down inside the front of her dress to frantically probe around between her collarbone and the top of her right breast as his wounded one continued to carry out his orders. Inexplicably, Cort's elation crumbled into a tired resignation as he searched.

"Charon, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Tenpenny creaked out from behind him, and he ignored both it and Burke tensing up on the opposite side of the bed. He didn't think, he knew what he was doing.

His thumb dug in through the thickest smear of crusted blood, and found what had been there under her flesh the entire time. The tiny true voice clawed itself to the top of the chasm in the space between one breath and the next, slammed against the inside of his skull and started shrieking. _No, nooo, that's impossible-_

Charon stalled for a handful of seconds, desperately trying to process what was happening, then flexed his right hand open and reached up to snatch the gag out of her mouth, worming his fingers into it to remove the sodden wadding that had been stuffed almost clear into her throat behind it. If she could talk, she could explain, and he would understand, and everything would stop spinning.

Cort coughed as it came loose, gulped in a great draught of air and then spat it back out again, her voice hoarse. "Not what I had in mind for you to do, but...I told you nobody could find it. Feel like a total fucking idiot yet?"

He traced his thumb over the cut on her chest, circling it over and over to feel the lump still safe beneath it, the motion echoing the same endless loop his mind had fallen into. "Then wh-_what_..."

"The copy I made. It wasn't _that_ good, you dolt. I didn't want to risk an _exact_ copy, and well. This happening. You should have looked _closer_, Charon." She dragged in another breath. "But all the blood...and I never bothered to tell you I had gone through with making it. But it's okay. _You're_ okay."

"I...I _am_?"

Wanting to believe her, Charon worked his brows together in muddled thought as Tenpenny shot up straight, scrambling against the arms of his chair and groping for his rifle. "Oh no, oh no no _no_-"

Burke gave them both a wary look and drew his pistol as Tenpenny started choking. "Mister Tenpenny?"

Wanting even more to get closer, Charon leaned in as Cort pulled out against the ropes as far as she could get, watched as she frantically looked around for something, anything that she could do, as she found nothing at all and started crying. Charon thought he knew what that meant, but he would have to ask to make sure. He needed at least one thing right now he could be sure of, needed it so very badly, and she always allowed him to ask. "Are we going to die now, Cort?"

"Yes sweetheart but don't worry, just wait and I'll find you, I promise Charon, just wait _I'll always find you_-"

Tenpenny finally grabbed up his rifle and forced a yell past the mess of panic in his throat. "_Burke, kill him! Kill him n_-"

A jagged scream cut him off. "CHARON, DROP!"

Charon promptly crashed himself down, pressing his face into into Cort's blood-soaked lap as something heavy slammed into his back and she screamed out again. No matter what happened next, it was a relief to obey.

* * *

**After **Charon left him, Dashwood had waited until the elevator reached the penthouse, confirmed that the car wouldn't return back down, then made for the third floor and the stairs up. Reaching the barricaded door, he put on speed and slammed one shoulder hard into it, then nearly blacked out from the feeling. It was like his arm had dropped clean off at the shoulder.

"Too damned old." Dashwood looked around, at the door, up at the ceiling, back the way he came, waiting for the sensation to come back into his arm, then stared at the door again when it did. "Hell with it. Certain liberties come with age." He lifted his shotgun and blew off the top set of hinges, then the middle, then the base, kicked the door in far enough to squeeze through and started climbing.

It took him over a half hour, even going as fast as he could; after every few floors he would have to stop and wait for his breath to come back, and the spots at the corners of his eyes to go away.

Reaching the penthouse floor, he glanced towards Burke's open door and then darted around to the other side, tapping on one of the other closed doors and hissing. "Irving! _Irving_! it's Herbert!" There was a brief scuffling noise and then the door cracked open an inch, revealing a shiny pate and one wide, pale eye.

"What do you want, comrade?"

"You need to get yourself and your missus downstairs, and be quiet while you do. Things have gone to hell in a handbasket."

A sweet, vindictive voice piped up from behind him. "You see? I told you. We should have gone out as soon as that girl started screaming and done something about it." She shoved the door open another inch and nodded to Dashwood. "It's nice to see some men here are made of action."

"That's kind of you Tiffany, but not now. Both of you get going, hole up in the basement with anyone else you can find and lock yourselves in."

Irving started pushing against the door. "Comrade, we are quite happy right-"

"Oh the heck we are, you old goat." Tiffany Cheng hissed at him, then wormed her way out into the hallway, hauling her husband by one ear. "Now get a move on."

Dashwood paused long enough to make sure they were well and truly gone, then made his way into Burke's suite, stopping when he saw Charon's moth-eaten dog. The animal's nose was to the corner of the wall, one ear pointed forward and the other directed back towards him, which flicked forward again as he creeped closer. Dashwood crouched next to him and listened.

_"I _told _you nobody could find it. Feel like a total fucking idiot yet?"_

Dashwood gripped his shotgun hard. As peppy was the words were, the girl sounded like she was on her last legs.

_"Then wh-_what_..."_

He held tighter. Charon's voice was even worse. He had never heard the big ghoul sound so lost.

_"The copy I made. It wasn't that-"_

He straightened up, wincing with the effort. That was all he needed to hear. "I don't know about you, pooch, but I'm going in."

* * *

**Dogmeat** debated very quickly with himself as the man slowly got to his feet, working through a mess of leftover aches and brand new confusion. This one was obviously some sort of ally, the big world had deferred to him when told to do something, and also, there was the fact that the giant bastard seemed to have gone completely rabid in the last ten minutes. It had taken everything to keep himself from rushing the room and attacking him in response, overwhelming uncertainty and a natural obedience to a pecking order the only things keeping him in check. Thinking on this, the simple wheels in the dog's head ground a little finer and exceedingly faster.

He himself was supposed to keep by his first at all times, and when she said something, it outweighed anyone else. She was in there, he was out here. That could be fixed. It wasn't the best excuse, but it was good enough, and he was very, very angry.

Dogmeat fell into step beside the old man and charged.


	63. Hearing That Music While I'm Losing Time

_Thanks much for the messages, reviews and reading, folks! For anyone who feels they've missed something, please don't hesitate to send one. I've left little threads everywhere to reference in future(contents of the last couple chapters were last mentioned about *ninety* chapters ago, and there's other stuff around the same time that won't show up for another 30-40, etc), and if I lose anyone, just ask. I'm always happy to explain why I did something, or where the hell something came from. ;)_

* * *

**A** lot of things happened all at once.

Dashwood swung wide into the room, yelling and firing at Tenpenny, then dropped as both he and Burke returned fire, the slug from the sniper rifle taking him high in the side as the one from the pistol spun him away. Tenpenny and his chair went over with a crash, a load of shot buried in his gut.

Dogmeat charged towards Cort as Charon dropped, leaving Burke free and clear on the other side of the bed. Dogmeat roared, leaped, landed hard on the ghoul's back and pushed off again as Cort screamed out, launching himself straight into the man who had opened the wicked holes in his flesh that still ached.

"EAT'EM UP, BABY!"

Eyes wide, Burke took him full in the chest, seventy pounds of snapping, tearing fury.

* * *

**Cort** let a handful of seconds go by, listening to moans, wet popping noises and panting breaths until she was sure things had ended. She pulled hard against her bonds, jerking out until she was half choking herself, the gagging sounding almost identical to the ripping noises coming from the far side of the bed. She collapsed back against the headboard just long enough to snatch another breath before looking down at the man still huddled up in her lap. "_Charon_. Set me _loose_."

She had barely been set free before she was scrabbling over the end of the bed in a lame, stilted crawl, then collapsed in a heap at the foot of it. Her legs were still half-numb. "Jesus wept! Fucking_ Burke_-" Cort wavered, looking between Tenpenny and the old man who had appeared out of nowhere like a homicidal Santa Claus and put a load of buckshot into him.

Letting out a noise that was half curse and half keen, she thrust up on her unmaimed hand and elbow and dragged herself across the floor to the latter. Propping her body against the door frame, she reached behind him, jerking back when her fingers sank into far too big a hole. His face ticced up in a grimace as hers paled under the mess of blood coating it.

"Good news, is it?"

She swallowed, hiding the fresh blood on her hand in the folds of her skirt. "I can't save you, there's too much missing. Too much torn up."

He smiled gently. "Oh, I was that way long before you were even thought of, pretty girl."

Cort looked into his eyes, then clumsily darted forward to lay a kiss one one of his lined cheeks. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

"For what, just giving me the last thrill of my life? Now go on, shoo. Don't worry about me, you've got business to finish."

"Charon, stay with him." Cort swung herself around, hot eyes finding and fixing on Tenpenny, her head swaying like a mad Yao Guai's. "_You_."

* * *

**In **his haste to obey, Charon almost fell over himself getting to Dashwood, who tried to sit up as the ghoul crouched down in front, crying out when he couldn't make it. Charon frowned, reached out and hauled him up by the scruff of his shirt. "You shouldn't move."

"There's a lot of things I shouldn'tve. Twice I did something stupid and let down the two most loyal men I ever met. Third time's a charm." He stopped, dissolving into racking coughs. "I knew she was here. Not who, but you know me. I don't miss a beat. I knew there was something wrong and I didn't do a damned thing, just like when Argyle went missing." Charon said nothing, still waiting for someone to make sense of things for him, and Dashwood tried to laugh. "You always were a good listener. I've thought about looking for him, but I know what I'd find. It was easier not to. It's always been easier to hole up and die a day at a time. When the time comes to do something, don't be afraid. Hear me? You don't be afraid. Don't be."

He worked his face into a puzzled expression. "But I'm always afraid."

Dashwood licked his lips, looking through him now. "Don't be. Don't be..."

Charon tilted his head to the side to match where Dashwood's had fallen, carefully set his body back down, and turned to look at Cort.

* * *

**Cort** broke into an uneven, undulating scuttle as Tenpenny's heels found purchase on the carpet and he started moving towards the far wall at a greater speed than she could manage.

"Baby!" Dogmeat snapped his head back, quickly swallowed a final gobbet of Burke and stalked over to stand in front of Tenpenny, hackles raised and his head nearly level with the ground.

Tenpenny kicked both slippered feet out as Cort caught up, and she twisted to the side, slamming her shoulder down with her whole weight behind it to keep one in place before grabbing the other and biting down hard onto his ankle. She looked up and smiled wide as he cawed out.

Cort pushed her voice up into a cracked, burbling cackle. "I'll get you my pretty, and my little dog, too."

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Tenpenny sneered, still defiant and haughty, unaccepting of his impending death. "Who do you think you are to tear down what I've built?"

He clenched his fists weakly, and her attention snapped to the right one at the quiet sound of crumpling paper. With an inarticulate snarl, Cort snatched the fake contract she had made away and forced it into his mouth, jamming it in so hard she grazed her knuckles against his teeth. She dropped down on his chest, holding herself inches away and gripping his forehead to keep him still, so close his sight filled up entirely with flat, hollow eyes the colour of the dead northern sea he had crossed so long ago.

"I told you, you bastard." She turned her head, bit down on the pen and wrenched it loose before gripping it in a fist, her voice as thick and clotted as the blood in her palm. "I'm the line you can't cross." She reared up and slammed the pointed end straight into his left eye. Tenpenny let out a thready, high-pitched shriek and went out like a blown bulb.

Propping herself up, Cort sat with the end of the pen just touching against her wounded palm, her head tilted up, staring blankly at the ceiling as the last few stuttering neurons fired in his ruined brain. The tip made tiny brushing sounds as it wiggled against her calloused skin. "There's a secret script inside the mind of every man, betwixt the electric shadows of thought and impulse. Feel them as they go dim and grey and cold, drowned in the clotting gall of cheap ink and failure."

She snatched her hand back, leaned forward, and spat a bloody glob onto the ruined crater of his eye. "I should write a dirty word on the back of your fucking festering skull."

Cort reached up to grip her own in both hands as a fresh wave of dizziness and noise washed over her, chiming and black and terrible. "Nonononononoquietquietquiet_quiet_. You be _quiet_. I have to figure out which voices are mine, and you are not _helping_, not at _all_." She let go and held her hands over her ears, floating them an inch away from the side of her head, running a series different notes through her throat and adjusting the pitch before she relaxed into a toneless hum, letting her fingertips fall down to trace little patterns on the floor.

* * *

**Charon** dumbly watched from where she had left him as the events of the last half hour sank in, wavering on the edge of locking up for good. He had erred terribly, first failing and then disobeying his employer, in the process irrevocably breaching the terms of his contract and dishonouring himself on every conceivable level. It was unfathomable, a horrific impossibility; he had become an impossible thing. Faced with this and left adrift without direction as that employer quietly struggled through her own delerium, he started to unravel.

He might have been lost entirely if Cort hadn't suddenly chosen that moment to reset her nose, letting out a short, eerily deep wail as she darted her hands up and clicked it back into place. He got up and reached out in a panic when he realized the noise had been his name, she had been _asking_ for him and he hadn't come. He couldn't disobey again.

Cort saw his hands flashing towards her and cringed, arms flying up to protect her face before she could stop herself. Charon froze, then slowly backed up until he hit the far wall on the other side of the bed, sliding into the furthest corner from her and turning his face to the floor.

"Charon oh God I didn't mean that I'm sorry please come back. Please just even _look_ at me." He spared a guilty, furtive glance towards where she sat, looking like a bedraggled poppy growing in some forgotten charnel pit. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry you had to do that." She crumpled into herself even further when he didn't move and started crying. "I should have said yes."

Unable to bear this even more than his own shame, he finally went to her. "No _fucking_ way, you, you _jackass_." He bent and picked her up, the sodden skirt slapping wetly against him as he brought her in close to his chest, then walked rapidly out of the room and into the suite across the hall, heading for the bathroom. Stripping the dress off of her, he threw it back out of the door to get it out of sight, then gently set her down in the bathtub and turned the water on, trying to ignore the fact that she had been naked underneath. Her teeth starting to chatter, Cort drew her knees up and shivered, trying to make herself even smaller.

"It's c-cold in here. Everything's going numb."

Giving her a hard look, he turned the hot water on even higher and splashed it over her, scooping it up and over her shoulders with both hands.

"I'm g-going into sh-sh-_shock_, aren't I."

"Yes."

"Huh. I've n-never d-done this b-before." She clenched her wounded hand and her jaw, trying to get rid of the damnable stutter for at least one sentence. "P-_please_ put the plug in."

"Not until you're clean. You're almost there." When the last of the blood had streaked off of her skin he did as she asked, letting the water fill until it gurgled in the overflow drain, then plunged a towel into it and draped the hot cloth over her head like a heavy cowl. Cort peered out from underneath it, her eyes at once too bright and too shadowed.

"Everything still f-feels t-too noisy."

"Then stay in there until you feel quiet."

Finished doing everything he could stand to do to take care of her, he turned away and collapsed, leaned against the tub with his hands over the back of his neck and his head between his knees, shutting down entirely. He didn't even move when Dogmeat jumped up and scrabbled over the edge to join Cort in the water, swamping both him and the surrounding floor before gurgling over into the heat registers and echoing down through the ducts. If there was anyone left below to object over the flooding or what he had done on his way in, none of them were making a case of it, and they were left undisturbed, the only sounds the rippling of water and Dogmeat panting as he tried to cool off.

Cort finally stirred an hour later, slithering out of the tub and landing beside him like a battered mermaid, wisps of steam curling up from her flushed skin. Dogmeat jumped out after her, shook himself dry and promptly trotted over to sit in the doorway. She crooned approvingly.

"That's my best boy, guard the door. Kill anyone that comes near it. Kill anyone who comes on this _floor_." She reached out to Charon as Dogmeat got up and walked out to circle the hall, but he flinched away before she could touch him. "Stop that. We need to fix your face and palm up."

"No. I deserve it."

"Charon, it's not your fault."

"You don't understand."

"Then tell me." Cort repeated herself as he shook his head, sternly this time. "_Tell me_, Charon."

"I...I _liked_ it."

He glanced over quickly and then back again, his gaze barely brushing her bruised, black-eyed face and the mangled hand that was still partly outstretched towards him, so swollen that the glove that belonged there wouldn't have a hope in hell of fitting back on. He hadn't attempted to heal her injuries; the idea of breaking her skin open again, even for a Stimpak, had been unbearable; even more loathsome than what he was about to do. "When he started giving praise, I..._part_ of me _liked_ doing it. It made that part _want _to hurt you." His voice shifted into a pitiful, high-pitched croak as his gorge rose. "To get _more_. Even just to hear my _name_." He pressed his face into the side of his knee. There. He had said it, so now she would say she was leaving, discard him; maybe even kill him, if she became furious enough. Charon thought that might almost be a relief, and one he didn't deserve.

Cort pursed her lips, then nodded. "I know."

His head bobbed up far enough for him to stare at her. "Wh-_what_?"

"You only got to hear your name for orders, or when you did something he wanted well enough to suit. Otherwise he didn't use it at all, did he? Or the employers before him, either? Especially not the slaver? _Definitely _not the people who made you like this?" Cort thinned her mouth down to grim line when he gave a jerky little nod after a long moment of thought. "I knew it."

"Knew _what_?"

"It's a dehumanizing tactic, not using your name. It's why you're funny about them with people you don't like, or don't want to admit you like. Why you say mine to get yours back so often." Cort regarded him steadily and spoke in a level, neutral tone as if she was stating simple fact, sounding neither accusing or sympathetic. "I was gagged, not blindfolded. I could see what he was doing to you. I could see it very well."

He stared for another few seconds before comprehension struck and he ripped his eyes away from hers. "Oh that's just fucking _perfect_. I hate it, I fucking _hate _it! Someone flips a fucking switch and Charon turns into a good little robot, Charon the perfect tool, Charon the _dog_. Sit, Charon. _Sicc her,_ Charon." He rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth and slowly shook his head. "No. I'm less than a dog."

"No, no you are not-"

"Would the fucking _mutt_ ever turn on you like I did? Torture you? What I know how to do, the things I could have _done_-" His voice cracked. "You're different from all the others, things are supposed to be different with you, _I'm _supposed to be different, you let me. I don't want to be this. I-I want to be a good man, Cort, why can't I be good for _you_? I'm...I'm supposed to _be_-" Feeling like something had just been wrenched somewhere deep inside, he let out a strangled howl as an old voice in his memory suddenly spoke up over his own, a loved voice paired with a stab of white-hot pain that lanced from his head to his guts. _Grow up and find a girl, pretty girl, I _did _that I've got a _beautiful _girl, I have to grow up big and strong and fine and be a good man for some girl, no, it's not fine, I have to _obey_, have to obey and _forget_, forgetforgetforgetforget- _Charon clenched his eyes shut and started rocking, digging his fingers into the sides of his neck until that hurt enough to make everything stop, until he started choking instead of screaming, until Cort's voice broke through again.

"Charon, don't, _don't_! You're hurting yourself!"

He stopped and bucked away with a snarl as she grappled with one of his arms. "Don't fucking _touch_ me! I'll make you _dirty_."

Cort kept perfectly still until he quieted enough for his breathing to even out, ready to pounce if he started up again. "Okay, then; do what you had me do. Get in the tub and rinse off. The water's still pretty warm."

"I can't get in it. I might fall apart." Finding this comment outrageously funny after a split-second of reflection, he sat up and barked out a short chain of high-pitched laughter before choking it off and grabbing at the back of his neck again.

"You can get in long enough to rinse off. Please? For me?"

One wide, chalky eye rose just high enough to stare at her. "D-don't ask. Make it an order. Say my name."

"Charon, I order you to get in the bathtub and rinse that filth off." A look of relief so strong she almost phyisically felt it washed over him, and he reached back to pull himself up and over the lip, crashing into the water fully clothed. It instantly went a sickish yellow-orange as he started scrubbing at himself, and Cort reached in to pull the plug with her good hand while she turned on the water with the other, replacing it as fast as it ran out and finally shutting it off when it ran clear. "Okay, all the way under, give a good shake, then out you come." The ghoul ducked himself, thrashed, surged up and out in one motion, his boots thudding down on the floor amidst another flood of water, then just stood there with his shoulders slumped.

Cort very slowly and carefully tottered upright, bracing herself on the side of the tub_. I can do this. Just one foot in front of the other, and then you'll be crossing the floor._ "Good. Now stay put until I come back and-"

"Where are you _going_?" Charon's voice scaled up and cracked. Eyes going wide, Cort nearly flung herself at him, grabbing hard onto his shoulder to keep from going down again.

"Nowhere, I'm going nowhere, see?" She tilted her head, and Charon immediately buried both hands into her hair, clenching his fingers. Cort turned a wince into a reassuring smile. "There you go, tug as hard as you want. I won't go anywhere. How could I ever go anywhere without you." She whistled for Dogmeat, who trotted over and sat obediently at their feet. "Baby, go get Charon's things, and find me something to put on. A _clean _something."

Cort kept still, half hanging off of Charon and trying to keep as hard a grip on her wits as Charon had in her hair. The pain of it was definitely helping. Dogmeat trotted in and out of the room, returning with all of Charon's weapons, the three guns from the three dead men across the hall, a crisp white shirt and a ludicrous looking pair of silk boxers, and after a particularly loud crash that made both of them jump, her repeater and silenced pistol. Seeing the rifle, Cort relaxed muscles she hadn't known had been tensed. "There's my pretty killing thing. All right Charon, time to let go. Just for a little bit."

Charon tightened his grip for a split second, then let his hands fall down to his sides, sounding calmer. "Yes, Cort."

Cort very carefully crouched down, handed him his shotgun, which he took in a grip that was almost an embrace, then plucked up the shirt, looking over it. "Well oh yay super. One of Burke's." She stared at it. "He was so tidy with his shirt." She ran her hand over the fine tailored lines, then clenched it up. "So I'm going to wear this until it's a total stinking sloppy wreck, and then the next one, and then the _next_, until I ruin _everything_." Letting herself go slack, she carefully dressed in the boxers and shirt, then picked through Charon's belts for the small amount of medical supplies he had brought with him.

To her immesurable relief, she kept herself from making a sound when she slammed the Stimpak in at the base of her skull, and almost groaned with relief when the next went into her wrist, then made a frustrated one when the two in her legs did nothing at all to improve their condition. She gave it up as a bad job for the time being, and grabbed a bottle of glowing water next, opening it up and soaking the rag that had been wrapped around it.

"Okay, Charon, you next. Sit on the bed and hold still. I have to make sure everything goes back where it's supposed to be."

The side of his face was an absolute ruin. Cleaning the blood from it, Cort found two spots where the glass had gone clear through to the inside, both shards still caught in the swollen tissue. Carefully prising them out, she worked her hands in and out of his mouth, pushing the flesh together against the soaked rag and waiting for it to knit back in place, then wetting her fingertips to work over the spots where his gums had been cut. The only reason his hand still worked properly had been because he had dragged down instead of across, the glass scraping over and between the tendons instead of slicing them.

Cort finished up, tugged his glove back onto his hand, then fished her repeater off of the floor and very carefully sat down beside him, staring at a spot on the wall next to the one he was staring at. "There. We're cleaned up, we're sat, we got guns. We're good." She leaned against his side, trying very hard to feel as safe as she was used to feeling with him, and wondering what she was supposed to do next, where she was even supposed to start. She didn't even know who the dead man across the hall was.

Cort pressed against him even harder. _Focus on right now. Right now is safe. Safesafesafe_. "We're good, and you did good."

Charon stared down at his hands. "No. I should not have allowed this to happen."

"And I should've dealt with fucking Frick and Frack in there ages ago. We are _not _going to play the blame game, we won't get anywhere. You found and saved me, just like I knew you would. And besides, we have bigger problems."

He glanced up abruptly, then down at her Pip-Boy, looking for anything hostile on the screen. "What problems?"

"I actually _can't _get anywhere. At least not yet." Cort stretched her legs out and watched her feet tremble. Not that she ever had or planned to run from Talons or anyone else, the idea that she couldn't was extremely disconcerting. "How long does it take for Radscorpion venom to wear off? Because I think I'm brimming with it."

Charon somehow managed to look even more chagrined at this new revelation, a new point of damage to tally up against himself. "You were _stung_?"

"Burke shot me full of the damn stuff to keep me quiet, mixed in with God only knows what. A little of everything if I'm not addicted to anything, I guess. Enough of all of it to keep me tripping balls for two Goddamned days." Cort shuddered. "I can't believe I'm fucking saying this but I think I prefer the nightmares."

"I can carry you."

"I know you can, but I also can't fight worth a good Goddamn. I'm not sure if what I'm looking at around me is actually where I'm looking at it, and I still feel-" Cort stopped. _I still feel like someone beat the shit out of me_. She worked her hand into his. "I still feel all dizzy, too. We're going to have to wait and hope nobody-" Dogmeat started snarling, and Cort deflated, checking her repeater over as Charon jumped up to join him in the hall. "Why do I feel like every time I open my mouth I'm just asking for it. It's because I am, aren't I."

A raspy voice called out, and Dogmeat snarled even louder.

"Hey Ron! Ron Schafer!"


	64. It's Getting Dark, Darling

_Hello readers! I'm still alive and writing! For any of you who missed the Charlie snippets I've been posting, there's a longer explanation of "Where the F %K is Mopps" in my profile. Posted here is the first half of Chapter 64, because it's been forever. Next half will be up with 65 by the end of next week, and possibly some edits to this half. It's not as clean as I like to post, but honestly I need to light a goddamned fire under my ass or I'll never get going again. Thank you for the favourites, reviews and support. :) (sorry if there's a crapload of typos in here, I only did a dirtyquick edit. It'll be cleaned up for the full post)._

_ETA: Complete chapter now up! Thanks for the loves, guys. You get me through the rough patches. :)_

* * *

**"Stay **here."

Cort gave Charon's back a cheerful smile and shoved herself up. "Get bent, _Ron_."

"I needed an alias."

"Ah. Wait. You took _my_ last name?" Charon moved slowly down the hall as Cort swung around to the outside of the doorway, looking distinctly pleased.

"Stay there for cover in case they get past me."

_I don't have much of a choice_. Cort leaned against the jamb and wiggled her toes. "Like that'll happen." Dogmeat snarled louder, and she sorted through the umpteen questions in her head for the most important one. "Are they going to try?"

He twitched one shoulder in a shrug. "Probably not. Might prove useful."

"You're going to need to explain a lot, I think." Cort thought she already might have the general gist of things, knowing from the radio that there were ghouls who wanted to get into the old hotel. "And Baby, you quit that. It's not helping right now."

Dogmeat gave a disgusted sneeze and broke off. The voice called out again, closer. "Ron!"

"I am going to choose something better than that though, if you're shifting your primary appellation. Ron Schafer makes you sound like a cheesy weatherman. Mmmm, you need something a bit more biblical, I think." Pleased shifted into amused as a bit of his normal acerbity reasserted itself.

"For _fuck_- we'll talk about it later. _Roy Phillips_!"

* * *

**Roy** stopped just outside the stairwell door. "Well, hey there Ron. Shit on a shingle, I guess you made out alright, huh. Good for you."

"I said twenty-four hours."

"Yeah, well once my old lady found out what had happened to yours I got a brand new set of marching orders. Not that I planned to get this far, but I would've tried even sooner if I'd known the place was half empty. We going to have a problem?"

"That is entirely up to you."

"Well, seeing how you made one of my wet dreams come true today, I figure I step out nice and easy, you don't blow my head off, and we make nice."

"Move."

Roy turned for a moment, back to the handful of ghouls behind him. "You all stay here. Don't move unless I give the word.' That done, he stepped out into the all, rifle carefully pointed towards the floor. "So, where's your-" Roy looked past him and stopped, his mouth hanging open on the last word. There was a girl in nothing but a fine dress shirt and ludicrous silk boxers down the hall, peeping out from behind the bullock blocking most of it. Noticing his attention, she waved, grinning a cheery, altogether batty grin. Roy shut his mouth.

Ron tilted his head slightly and spoke deferentially to the girl. "What do you want to do?"

"Tell me more." She went up on tiptoe so he could whisper in her ear, her face lighting up as he got to the end of whatever information he was relating. "Policeman? Like a real one? She hooted, sounding charmed. "Just like Joe Friday on Dragnet."

Roy blinked, startled out of his hostility. "Lady, where the hell did you come from?"

"A Vault." She dropped back down to her heels, clinging to Ron as she staggered. "I think I want to sit down and have a nice chat. It's been forever since I've had company over."

Ron eyed her retreating back, then returned his attention to him. "Follow her in and talk."

Roy gave his right back, flat out staring. "What were you? Special forces? Part of some wetwork black ops?"

"The hired help."

Roy shook his head, and decided to just go with the flow for the moment. They were in the Tower, he had plenty of folks with him, and the truth of the matter was he was now dying of curiosity.

Her rapt, empty eyes fixed on him as soon as he entered. "Well, good then. It's very nice to meet you, Roy. Thank you for coming."

Roy blinked at the disarming politeness, then narrowed his eyes.

He had found a rattlesnake one spring, hidden in the back of his garden shed. The thing had scared the piss out of him before he took its head off with the edge of the spade it had been nestled behind. Then that had scared the piss out of him all over again when he went to pick it up. Literally. The girl reminded him of that; that snapping, senseless, jaw-walking head, a viper's brain left with no way or will to escape, just the base need to sense the heat of a thing and bite. If it had been warm enough out for the rattler to feel perkier, he was positive it would have tagged him for sure.

He bared his teeth in a smile that was about as reassuring as the snake's had been. "You're quite welcome. Now how about we cut the shit, princess. You can't lead me around with what's between your legs like ol' Ron out there."

It took him less than a second to decide that was the exact wrong thing to say.

* * *

**Michael **Masters trudged up the stairs, passing through the knot of ghouls still clogging up the head of them, then stopped short at the single one taking up the hallway.

"Uh, Ron? Is it? I need to talk to Roy?"

He jerked his chin towards the dog. "Escort him."

Michael glanced down at the mangy thing, who was now fixated rather disconcertingly on his face. "R-right. Okay then." He walked down the hall, pressing against the wall to get around the big ghoul, and sidled into the room. Looking at the pair of them, teeth showing at each other like a pair of enraged rats, he wished he could just turn around and sidle right back on out again.

"I think you've somehow gotten the _wrong impression_, Roy."

Michael cleared his throat. "Roy."

* * *

**"Hang** on." Roy spared Michael a glance and turned back to the girl. "Listen, you smart-mouthed little slick-"

"Yes, because I have never heard that insult before, ever. I have been stung by your cutting wit, oh woe is me."

"Roy, we've got a little problem."

Roy spared him an irritated glance. "Shit. What now?"

"There's a gaggle of residents holed up in the basement. Won't come out."

The girl snorted, not quite laughing, and Roy turned back to sneer at her.

"Feel like weighing in?"

She placed her hands into her lap and worked them up into a ball, putting a guileless look on her face. Roy trusted it about as far as he could throw a Corvega. "Well, those poor people need to come out of there. I suppose the best thing to do is tell them what a wonderful job you all did of saving me. After all, those guards and mercenaries were just colluding with Tenpenny to destroy a town with children in it and unlawfully confine the...what am I now, Charon? Aside from the 'Lone Wanderer'." She rolled her eyes and made a small noise like a trumpet fanfare.

"Last time I checked, the 'Ambassador of Peace'."

"Oh Jesus Murphy." The eyes rolled again and then refixed on him, back to being hard as glass. "What it boils down to, is I've built up some street cred, Roy. _Someone _might as well get some good use out of it."

"Yeah, and what do you want out of it."

She blinked at this, and it was clear she hadn't thought of getting anything in exchange. Roy cursed to himself as she started to ponder over it, eventually rewarding him with an avaricious smile.

Why, just a little old top floor bolthole." She flicked her hand out. "This room, whenever we need it. Safe places to sleep are hard to come by out here."

"Agreed, so why would I go and fuck it up by letting some smoothie drag trouble into it?"

"I don't go out of my way to risk other people, Roy. Ending up in this dump should be proof enough of that." She smiled again, wider. "But I _am_ selfish, and buggier than an Amish parking lot. I was also here _first_."

At this, Roy decided he had had enough. "And _I_ think we got you outnumbered by three to-"

Michael butted in again, tugging on the sleeve of his sweater this time. "Roy."

"Fucking-_what_? _What_ is burning a hole through your ass?"

"We think we found the rest of the guards."

"What the fuck do you mean 'think'?"

"The bodies are hidden all over the place. It's like an Easter egg hunt down there."

"How many?"

"Couple dozen so far. We're still looking."

The girl hissed. "Oh for pity's sake, I've had enough of this. Charon! Did you get them all, how many, and did you put any of them someplace inconvenient?"

"_Yes, _I got them _all_." The testy reply drifted in like a withered desert breeze. "Thirty-eight. Top of the elevator car. Inside the back of an ugly couch downstairs."

Roy stared at her. "Man, just what the hell _is _he?"

"He's mine." She wrinkled her nose up. "Now will somebody please get me some pants?"

* * *

**Roy** begrudgingly had to admit that the girl played at least some of the remaining residents like a harp. Eyes wide and tottering on her pasty-white pins(the dog had brought her a pair of dress slacks, and she had rolled the cuffs to her knees after rather alarmingly cursing the garment out for being tidy), she was the perfect picture of a lost little waif, hung low by the machinations of an evil old man. Roy supposed that it didn't hurt that most likely the residents who had half a clue and at least a quarter of a conscience had all hated or feared him to some degree anyway, and the fact that Cort's story of salvation at their ghoulish hands being the only one that didn't end with them all having to fight it out.

He thought close to half of them honestly bought it. Some of the others looked like they were willing to suspend their disbelief for the sake of just getting the hell out of the stinking basement, and the rest were operating on the solid assumption of what the whole lot of them probably knew in their deepest little smoothy hearts; it was make nice or die in that stinking basement. Six in one, half a dozen in the other. It all worked out to the same result.

Roy figured the girl's slap-dash con act would last them a week, tops, and really, a week was fine. Just fine as new paint._ Clean up the place, let some of the caravan traders see us all kumbayaaing the fucking shit out of each other, and theeen..._

He would plan some sort of outing for Bessie Lynn at the same time the others took care of business, somewhere outside and while it was sunny, but not too hot. Maybe a picnic brunch, long enough for any messes to be made and then cleaned up. They could be back in time for a nice nooner, even. Just so.

Cort and Ron -_Charon_, he corrected himself, and just what the fuck kind of name was that- left for upstairs while he was dickering out details about cleaning and sending someone for their non-combatants, which suited him completely. He didn't want either one of them anywhere near when Bessie Lynn was brought in, the girl in particular.

She had been sweet as sugar to everyone since leaving the penthouse, but the crawling feeling she had given him had only gotten worse. He had learned to trust it after running into some of the crazier perps his former career had coughed up in his face, the ones that were smart or sly enough that it was the only sign you ever had that something was terribly wrong. Bessie was a darling, but about as sharp as a butter knife. She would see the pretty face and none of the ugliness underneath.

* * *

**"They'll** probably kill all of them eventually, won't they?"

Charon ushered Cort back into the penthouse room she had claimed and shut the door behind them. "I'd be surprised if they last the night."

"Does that bother you?"

"It should."

Cort huffed out a resigned sigh, blowing a shaggy lock of hair out of her eyes. "Wardrobe in front of the door, you think?"

"Should do." He dragged the heavy piece of furniture over, shoving it in tight.

"Balcony?"

Charon regarded the door to it thoughtfully. Mining it would be the most effective, but they might need to use it as an escape route. "Mutt." He let Dogmeat out as Cort made her way over to the bed and sat down.

"So. The only one who helped me is already dead."

"Yes."

She stared at him, asking one of her not-quite questions. "That bothers you."

"...Yes."

She went quiet for a moment, then slapped on a wild, brittle grin. "Well, they're all adults, on both sides, and I don't want to be for once. So fuck'em. I'll just learn to live with feeling bad about it if I have to later. I can't do everything for everybody."

"No."

She reached up to smooth her hair, fidgeting. "We got interrupted."

Charon didn't bother to hide the relief he felt at that. "Yes."

"Helped to have your job to focus on."

"My _job_." Charon spat the words out. His job had been to protect Cort, and now she was sitting there with a ridge on her nose instead of a line and a new set of scars on one of her hands. Her clever, slender hand. "Don't you see what I am?"

Cort dropped her head and started fiddling with the hem of Burke's shirt. "I see the man you are and always will be."

"There's a lot of ways I can take that, Cort."

She reached up and gestured for him to come closer, scooting back as she did. "Sure could, but just go with whatever I'm thinking for the moment. Strip, then come on over here and join me on the bed."

Startled, Charon balked under a renewed burst of shame. "Cort, no, I _can't_-"

"You don't tell me what you can or can't _do_. You wanted orders, so you've got them!" Cort snapped at him. It had half killed her to wait this long, wanting nothing more than to touch him, fix it all, erase everything. She shifted on the balls of her feet, trying not to shake herself to pieces until he had finished doing what she wanted. "Good. Now stay there."

Shutting her eyes, Cort crawled into his lap, and started caressing him, down his neck and sides, brushing her hands in his favourite spots and waiting for him to relax, getting angrier and angrier the longer he didn't. She finally stopped when her grasp slipped lower and she found nothing to prove that Charon wanted anything at all. She opened her eyes to look at his face, and he took the opportunity to speak. "Why are you doing this."

"Because I love you very much, because _I_ need this very badly, and because you need to be punished. I'm not going to allow you the satisfaction of wallowing in puling self-pity and _guilt_ like a weak little-" He flinched instead of getting furious, and Cort winced. _ Sometimes, I think I'm really rather one bullying, selfish, pushy little shit_. She pushed herself off, disgusted and now feeling her own shame. "I'm sorry, _God _I'm so sorry. You don't need to do anything you don't want t-_Charon_!" Cort cried out as he suddenly slammed her down onto the bed, pushing so hard he was straining against her.

"_Cort_."

"Charon. Char-" He buried his face against her neck and pressed in even closer, breathing so hard every exhalation felt like a small damp punch against her skin. Cort tried to keep from panicking at the feeling of being pinned. "Please. Please. I need to _breathe_, Charon."

"I don't want to anymore." He rolled off, then laid down again with his arms wrapped around her, head buried in the crook of her shoulder, long legs tucked up against hers. Cort reached up and hugged him in return, and he tried to keep from crushing her closer. Her Pip-Boy felt heavy against his back, the glove a cooler patch on his shoulder amid her warm fingers. He felt like he was made of too many pieces, broken ones that didn't want to fit together anymore and would fall apart if her hand moved away, and all of them were tired. So very, very tired. "Why didn't it work, Cort."

"What didn't?"

He pressed his forehead into the hollow beneath her collarbone until he could feel the pacemaker beneath it. "I said it was you."

"Oh. I don't know. Maybe it just hasn't been long enough yet. The mind is a funny, funny thing, but it's flexible." _Until it snaps_. "We just have to wait, and some day, pop. It'll...it'll just happen." Cort pressed her lips against the top of his head and tried not to shudder.

Charon thought for a while before tentatively speaking up again. "I can't remember all of what they did, but I do know some of it. You're smart; it might be enough. If I explained it to you, you could try to retrain me-"

She cut him off, horrified. "No. No, a thousand Goddamned times _no_. I could make it worse, or jumble your brains up so bad you wouldn't even be you anymore. I won't do it. Don't you _ever _even_ think _of asking me that again."

"I hurt you."

"No, that bastard currently bloating up like a foetid piñata across the hallway hurt me. He hurt you too." Cort traced the fingertips of her free hand along his face, from the bridge of his lost nose to where his right ear should have been, before laying them against his cheek. "And we made him pay for it. We'll always make them pay. Won't we."

"Yes, Cort."

"Just keep telling yourself I'm it. I'll tell you too, and eventually it'll stick? Alright?"

"All right." He mumbled against her skin. "All better."

_You may be, but I don't think I am. Not at all. I don't really think you are either_. "Charon, we need to talk about who you'd want your contract to go to."

Charon snapped awake again in an instant. "_No_. Not now."

"Tomorrow, then. No arguments."

"Yes." There would be no arguments with himself, either. He would keep telling himself what he wanted to hear. and focus on the good things that had happened, scarce things that they were. She hadn't let him down. She was still solid. He would work on his weaknesses. "Yours?"

"Mine."

"Everything's changed."

"Not everything."

He closed his eyes, feeling her pull the sheets up after a few minutes, grabbing them first with her toes to get them within easy reach, then twitching and tugging until they were both covered. "What do I do now."

Cort smiled and kissed his temple. "You go to sleep, silly. That's what you do when you're tired." She snuggled down under the covers, sighing when he buried a hand in her hair. "You take a long rest from yourself, spend a nice long time in the dark, and when you wake up you'll be right as rain."


	65. Change Is Come

_For anyone that missed it, the completed version of chapter 64 is up. I'm going to try and write out the last of ItPSF in one long go and post it after this. I have a lot of it already written, it's just the joining up._

_There are certain songs that will remind me of different characters or situations when I hear them. The last one that reminded me of Charon was 'Momma Sed' by Puscifier, and it fits pretty well for this chapter. For anyone who listens, it'll fit pretty well for the next few._

* * *

**Red.**

Everything was red, and everything was all around him. Everywhere. It was also entirely too big, or was until he looked down at himself, and realized it was he who was very very small. He said as much.

_"I'm too small."_

_"Yes, but you'll grow, now won't you?"_

It's a familiar voice, and he feels his heart leap in expectation. _"Cort?"_

_"So smart already! Yes, you'll grow, and then go courting some pretty girl."_ He turns, and there's a woman there, but she's tall, _too_ tall, and she's red warmth instead of cold iron. If he could remember his name, either one of them, he thinks he would run from her, remember the things hidden in that scarlet mess, but he remembers the forgotten instead, and lifts up his arms. _"Grow big and strong and fine and find some pretty girl. Isn't that right?"_

_"Yes, Mommy."_

She bends down to pick him up, her hair falling around him like a curtain and opening his insides like a door. Insides. They came and her _insides_-

Everything inside her is red, and her insides are everywhere around, and his arms are around her neck, then just his hands, and he's pulled loose but no, he's grabbed her hair, red and thick and snarled around his wrists and fingers and if he can just hang on long enough, if he can pull himself back, if he just pulls as hard as he can he can push the strings that have come loose from her belly back in like so much stuffing, if her hair would just stop breaking, strand by strand by strand, it's too long and the screaming, he's screaming so loud for her to make it stop-

_"Stop it. Now. Do you hear me? I order you to-"_

Red stains to umber as the words continue on and pound into his head, fading into the black of a new, sweeter voice, a savage one, laden with command and the promise of forgetful oblivion.

"_Yes, Cort_."

* * *

**When** he woke up, there was a long piece of thread tied around one of his wrists. He laid there for a moment, staring at it with no small amount of puzzlement, then for no good reason he could think of, calmly turned over and shrieked into his pillow until he ran out of air.

When he got up to see where it led, he found Cort on the other end, sitting naked on the room's balcony in a slanted patch of sun and fussing with a jumble of faded black fabric in her lap, Dogmeat sprawled against her back. She looked diminished again, the commanding aura he had sheltered in the previous day subsumed beneath the distracted, fragile air she now carried so often.

Charon held up the slack thread. "What's this?"

"Breadcrumbs." She dug around, first under her rear and then back in the bundle, looking annoyed. "I wanted the daylight and you to keep sleeping, so-" Her gaze hardened for a split second. "What do you remember after you went to sleep?"

He looked at her blandly, wondering what she had gotten up to and deciding to let it slide for the moment. There weren't any fresh bloodstains or new bodies that he could see. "Nothing, Cort. I was asleep."

"Oh. Good. Breadcrumbs. For when you woke up. Don't lose it; I want to give anything extra to Barrows."

He dutifully started coiling it up. "Did you even sleep?"

She scrunched her face up. "I...I don't _think_ I...no. No, I didn't. You needed it more. That's why I came out here, in the sun. I couldn't keep awake without making myself busy." She fumbled around in her lap, hands fluttering and her voice going thready. "Light, light is important too it might burn everything out if I get it all over."

"After you finish, you're taking a nap. I'll put the mattress on the balcony." He furrowed his brow. "What _are_ you doing?"

She replied with another question. "Why did you look like that?"

"Like what?" Charon hedged, even though he thought he had a general idea. Cort cut straight into this thought with ruthless, childlike phrasing.

"He made it so you weren't behind your face anymore. You never look like that when I order you to do something."

"I want..." Charon trailed off, then jabbed his thumb into his chest. "_I_ want to follow your orders. Me. Myself. Not what I am."

"Oh." Cort made a little grunt and jerked her hand up to her mouth, first plucking something free of it and then licking off the bright bead of blood that was now welling up on her thumb. "Sometimes I forget. It's like living with two people."

Charon regarded her solemnly. Cort the girl. Cort the lunatic. She started up a tuneless humming, staring off into space as she waited for an answer, thumb still tucked into the corner of her mouth. _Cort. My broken Cort_. "I know. I shouldn't have let myself...let you..."

Cort straightened up and smiled. "Charon, stop punishing yourself. That's my job. And actually, speaking of that." She smacked her lips expectantly. "Why does my dog have bald patches and jaundice?"

"Moira." She gave him an alarmed look. "He's gotten much better since we left."

Dogmeat dragged in a breath and let it out in a long, sighing whuff, and Cort raised her eyebrows. "_He_ doesn't think so."

"He's a moth-eaten drama queen you're using to change the subject. Why didn't you say yes? You could have."

"I didn't feel like dying."

"He wouldn't have killed you immediately. You're smart. Useful. You could have figured something else out."

"I-" Cort tilted her head and let out a long sigh. "I am a stubborn, prideful, arrogant person. Daddy always said I could be depended on to cut off my own nose to spite my face. He also said I came by it honestly. I guess it's true." She fell quiet, looking over the desert. "I couldn't let that pile of human filth force me to do something so terrible, even to pretend, just because he drew a little blood. I just couldn't. I couldn't guarantee I would get another chance to protect those people. I _did_ have that chance. That moment, right in my hands. It makes me so, _so_ angry, and I'm so, _so_ sorry about what happened because of it. And I told you. You weren't behind _your_ face anymore." She jabbed at the fabric, her voice sounding beautifully hard for a moment. "I was not going to permit that any longer than I had to."

Charon ran through the riot of complicated thoughts and different emotions this produced , then decided to do as he always did and state things simply. "I love you."

"I love you too." She smiled again, pleased. "Oh, and I'm listening. I think I want to go that way. I think it wants to sing with me." She pointed off to the southwest, smiling wider. "Have you ever explored in that direction?"

"Only as far as I was required to, which wasn't very." She nodded, picked up the bundle of cloth, and Charon finally realized what it was she was doing, what he had actually been asking about. She was sewing, and from the looks of it she had been at it for some time, only a few inches of seam left. "Is that my shirt?"

"Yes. I...I scrubbed it too hard, getting it clean. It came apart. I didn't want you to have to wear anything from here. I tied your pants and armour to the railing as soon as I got up, too. They should be dry soon."

"You're sewing."

She raised her eyebrows and stared at him, nodding slowly. "Yeees, I found a little kit in one of the nightstands. I am also sat on the floor buck naked and a _girl_. Naked girl, at your naked feet. Honestly, you decide to state the obvious and focus on my housekeeping skills?" Straightening up, she continued primly on. "I can also darn socks, knit and make cupcakes, which were apparently Vault-Tec's frigging idea of appropriate gendered activities." She scowled briefly. "I speak fluent latin, but could I figure out crochet? Nooo."

"There's spares all over the building."

"I know, Dogmeat told me after I started. I needed to mend this one for you." She jerked her chin towards the wall, and he followed the gesture. Tucked against it was a corpse wound up tightly in a bedsheet. "It's the old man with the shotgun. I sewed him up, too. The sheets are linen, I checked."

Charon nodded as if he understood why she thought that was important. "Thank you."

"Who was he?"

He briefly considered telling her, deciding in the end that it wouldn't make any difference, except to make her sad. He shook his head at the bundle. _She loves your stupid radio shows, you tired old bastard. Why ruin things when I can avoid it for once._. "Just someone I met on the way. Someone who wanted to do the right thing. Winthrop, Barrows, Crow, Reilly, Irving or Sarah."

Cort blinked. "I need to sew for them now?"

"My contract. In that order."

"_Oh_. Why."

"All of them are responsible people you like. None of them are likely to relinquish it without a hard fight, although Irving and Sarah's loyalties could be problematic, which is why they would be a last resort. All of them would keep me busy." _All of them might kill me if I asked._

"Okay, but." She tilted an eyebrow. "Crow? _Really_?"

"You like the sonofabitch. I can work a caravan. It's good enough."

Coming to the end, she knotted the thread and bit it off, then sat staring at the whole shirt in her hands. "There. We're ready to go off into the unknown."

"Cort, are you sure you don't want to go home?"

"Yeah. Over there tickles my fancy. It's been a while since we went out, and we're here now anyway. Besides, we need to get some more map markers for Reilly. Can't be slouches, it's unprofessional." She hummed and tapped a finger against the floor. "Can't be around people, it's unsafe." Charon closed the space between them and sat down as she started to rock back and forth, arms resting on his knees and his side flush against hers, waiting for her to stop and come around again. Her eyes eventually wavered up to his, and she pulled her arms and legs up to match. "Charon?"

"Cort."

"Please put me back together now?"

"As you wish." He reached up and buried a hand in her short hair. "Cort?"

"Charon."

"Please don't tie me up again. I don't think I like it."


End file.
